901 Weekend takes Beale, Wiseacre turns 13, and roller derby turns 20

Hey Memphis 👋 It's Thursday. Sunny and 91, down to 71 overnight — and for the first time in weeks, not a single weather alert on the board. Friday actually gets cooler as it goes. You can stand outside after dark again.

Good timing: the city picked this weekend to throw itself a party. 901 Weekend puts 300-plus Memphis artists on Downtown stages, Friday on South Main and Sunday all over Beale. Five things tonight first.

🌙 Tonight

Grind City Flow Arts Full Moon Fire Jam — WISEACRE OG, 2783 Broad Ave., 6–10:30 PM, free to watch (workshops $15). Acro yoga at 6:15, beginner fire eating at 7:15, then two hours of fire circle with a DJ. Watch from outside the circle. Details

Speak, Salvation, Speak — Hattiloo Theatre Main Stage, 37 Cooper St., 7:30–9:30 PM. A devoutly Pentecostal father, a son who's gone to ancestral tradition, the mother between them. Opening night of a run through September 6. Details

Artist Talk: Barbara Penn and George Edward Walker — Crosstown Arts Galleries, 1350 Concourse Ave. Suite 280, 6–8 PM. Both artists walk you through the shows on the walls, which beats the little cards. Details

Speed Puzzling Competition — Burch Library, Collierville, 5–6:30 PM, free. Teams race the same jigsaw against a clock. Registration required, and people take it seriously. Details

Poker Night with the River Rat Rounders — Meddlesome Brewing, Cordova, 6–10 PM, free to play. Free cards, and every beer in the place is $5 from four until close. Details

☀️ Your Weekend in Memphis

Friday

901 Weekend Kickoff at Trolley Night — South Main, 5–10 PM. Creative mixer at the Halloran Centre 5–7, then a concert at the National Civil Rights Museum, 450 Mulberry, 7–10 — DJ Brilli, Lana J, Preauxx and Iris Collective, hosted by Kia Shine and Zaire Love. Details

Drink a Beer, Save a River — Flyway Brewing, 598 Monroe Ave., from 5:30 PM, free. The Memphis Zoo has 30-plus hidden cameras watching what wildlife does with our green space; Dr. Anne Sabol comes at 6 to show you. A quarter of every beer goes to the Wolf River Conservancy. Details

Happy Friday at The Grove — GPAC, Germantown, 5–8 PM, free. Josh Threlkeld's "Bring You ALL," the one where the audience gets handed instruments and is expected to use them. Details

Vincent Bohanon & SOV — New Salem Baptist Church, 2237 South Parkway East, 6:30–10 PM, $15. A full gospel concert in a church sanctuary — the kind of night that never reaches a calendar. Details

Saturday

WISEACRE's 13th Birthday — WISEACRE OG, 2783 Broad Ave., 1 PM to midnight, free. An anniversary beer that lasts until it doesn't, Panuzzo King cooking, Gonerfest tickets given away, live music the Shell hauls over. Details

Memphis Roller Derby 20th Anniversary Double Header — Pipkin Building, 940 Early Maxwell Blvd., doors 3 PM. B-Sides take Roe City at 4, then an open-gender match against Roe and JXN at 6. Twenty years of this. Details

Melrose Class of 1946: 80th Anniversary — Orange Mound Library, 843 Dallas St., 11 AM–1 PM, free. The library reads every name from Melrose High's first graduating class, then the Class Prophecy those seniors wrote predicting each other's futures — and staff tell you what actually happened. Details

Olive Branch Farmers Market — City Hall lawn, 9200 Pigeon Roost Rd., 8 AM–12 PM, free. Mississippi produce, bakers and makers, twenty-five minutes south. Details

JookinWarz: Memphis Jookin Madness 6 — 385 S. 2nd St., 3–6 PM, $12.51–$30. Jookin was invented here and is still argued about here. This is the argument, in brackets. Details

Sunday

901 Day on Beale — Beale Street and Handy Park. Five zones. Black Cream, Doll McCoy and Marcella Simien on the Ida B. Wells stage, then a closing set honoring Tay Keith and a David Porter tribute with Stax Music Academy and KIRBY. Gospel and Ballet Memphis at Handy Park, film and jookin at the New Daisy. The city hasn't posted start times yet — check before you go. Details

Vince Gill: 50 Years From Home — Orpheum, 7 PM, $72.40–$178.05. Saturday sold out. The Orpheum added Sunday, and Sunday is still on sale. Details

Rev Down Trio — Hi Tone small room, doors 5, music 6, free. A no-cover matinee that turns you loose early enough for Sunday to still be a Sunday. Details

👶 Kids & Family this weekend

Reading Rhythms — Beale Street Landing, 251 Riverside Dr., Friday 10–11:30 AM, free, ages 2–5. Cossitt Library does the story time, the Orpheum Theatre Group runs the movement class, and the first 25 kids get a Mempops popsicle. Details

901 WRESTLING Saturday Morning LIVE — 901 Studio, 4798 Summer Ave., Saturday 11:30 AM–2 PM, tickets from $0. Local wrestling taped in front of a live crowd, and there's a genuinely free ticket tier. Details

Memphis splash pads — seven parks, daily 10 AM–7:45 PM, free. They close for the season September 7, so this is one of the last good weekends. Details

Want the whole verified list, updated daily? It lives at heymemphis.co/events.

📰 The Rundown

Worth knowing about 901 Weekend: the city is deliberately programming nothing official on 901 Day itself, Tuesday September 1. Its position is that the day belongs to the neighborhoods, not City Hall. (via City of Memphis)

If you lost a refrigerator of groceries in the outages, there's money for it. The city, City Council and United Way of the Mid-South put up to $100,000 into a fund called Memphis Cares. Anyone who went more than 24 hours without power can call 844-444-4211. (via City of Memphis)

Orange Mound broke ground Monday on the first house in the ABODE community land trust, 1390 Marechalneil Street. It started with twelve vacant lots the city picked up, and the point of a land trust is that the house stays affordable after it sells. (via City of Memphis)

🍽️ Food & Drink

Bring beer, leave with better beer. WISEACRE runs its first Sky Dog Swapportunity on Broad Avenue Saturday: hand over a six-pack of any domestic, import or light lager and they trade you a six-pack of Sky Dog, free. A lager amnesty, running all day alongside the birthday. Details

🎟️ Looking Ahead

The new Crosstown venue opens early — Satellite Music Hall, the 1,300-cap room in the Concourse, holds a Community Preview Night Wednesday September 2, ahead of The Band CAMINO's homecoming on the 4th and 5th. Details

Speak, Salvation, Speak keeps running — if the weekend gets away from you, Hattiloo has it again September 3–5 at 7:30, with 2 PM matinees the 5th and 6th. Details

🏡 Community Corner

So what are you doing for 901 Day? The city's leaving Tuesday the 1st wide open, which means the good stuff will be somebody's bar doing $9.01 something, or a shop on your corner throwing a thing nobody off the block hears about. If your spot's planning something — or you are — hit reply. We'll run the best of them Monday, while it's still useful.

The tip line never closes — a pop-up, a band, a Sunday afternoon we missed — no gatekeeping — send it to hey@heymemphis.co.

That's it for today — see you tomorrow at 6.

— Josh