The Berkshires · Central Berkshires

Becket

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, October Mountain State Forest, and one of the quietest Berkshires towns by year-round population.

Becket is best known for Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the longest-running international dance festival in the United States — ten weeks every summer, with international ballet companies, contemporary choreographers, and the Pillow's own school programming. The festival site itself is a National Historic Landmark, with multiple performance venues spread across the wooded hilltop campus. Beyond the Pillow, Becket is a small, rural town with a year-round population in the low hundreds; October Mountain State Forest, the largest state forest in Massachusetts, covers much of the surrounding land. For visiting adults 21+, Becket's value is the Pillow festival programming and the surrounding hiking; cannabis retail is centered in nearby Lee or Pittsfield. The day shape during festival season: afternoon performance at the Pillow, dinner in Lee or at one of the small Becket spots, evening performance, drive home — a long but rewarding day in the central Berkshires.