Memphis Creative Week: September 3–9, 2026

Best Bets

• Alabama at Live at the Garden — tonight’s marquee concert, newly rescheduled for September 3.

• Metal Museum Grand Opening — free first look at the museum’s new $35 million Overton Park campus.

• The Band CAMINO Homecoming — the opening-weekend headliner at the new Satellite Music Hall.

• Speak, Salvation, Speak — final weekend for Hattiloo’s Harry Lennix-led drama.

• Memphis PowerPop Festival — the week’s best free local-music bill.

• Ernest Cole: Lost and Found — the strongest film screening, focused on an essential South African photographer.

Thursday, September 3

• 5:30–6:30 p.m. — 30 Days of Opera at Shelby Farms Park
  Shelby Farms Park, 6903 Great View Dr. N. · Free
  [FREE] [FAMILY-FRIENDLY] [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY]
  Opera Memphis brings a professional pop-up performance into the park—an approachable opening-week event from its monthlong free-opera series.

• 6–9 p.m. — AmericanaFest Preview Party
  Soul & Spirits Brewery, 845 N. Main St. — Uptown · Free with RSVP; optional $10 artist-travel donation
  [FREE] [FAMILY-FRIENDLY] [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY] [ADVANCE RSVP]
  Marcella Simien, Savannah Brister, Aidan Osias, KEER and Philip Nye preview the Memphis artists headed to Nashville’s AmericanaFest.

• 7–9 p.m. — Ernest Cole: Lost and Found
  Crosstown Theater, 1350 Concourse Ave. — Crosstown · $5 box office/$6.18 online · All ages
  [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY] [ADVANCE TICKET]
  Raoul Peck examines the South African photographer’s images of apartheid and the remarkable recovery of his long-missing archive.

• 7:30 p.m. — Bluff City Liars Improv
  Hi Tone Small Room, 282–284 N. Cleveland St. — Crosstown · $13.50 · 21+
  [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY] [ADVANCE TICKET]
  A welcome grassroots-theater option: fast, audience-driven comedy from Memphis’s local improv troupe.

• Gates 5:30 p.m.; show 8 p.m. — Alabama with Michael Ray
  Radians Amphitheater at Memphis Botanic Garden — East Memphis · Current price at checkout · All ages
  [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY] [ADVANCE TICKET] [FAMILY-FRIENDLY]
  The rescheduled Live at the Garden date pairs Alabama’s deep country catalog with an outdoor, bring-your-own-chair-and-picnic setting.

Friday, September 4

• 4–11 p.m. — Delta Fair & Music Festival: opening day
  Agricenter International, 7777 Walnut Grove Rd. · $15 adults; $10 ages 5–12 and seniors; age 4 and younger free
  [FAMILY-FRIENDLY]
  Opening day combines local music, circus acts, Lady Houdini, dinosaur and grizzly-bear presentations, midway attractions and a free-with-admission Opera Memphis performance at 6:30 p.m. The fair continues through September 13.

• 7–9 p.m. — Metal Night at the Shell: KaRRot
  Overton Park Shell, 1928 Poplar Ave. — Overton Park · Free
  [FREE] [FAMILY-FRIENDLY] [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY]
  A Korn tribute becomes the loud opening-night prelude to the Metal Museum’s new campus. Costumes—heavy-metal musician or blacksmith—are encouraged.

• Gates 6 p.m.; concert 7–8:30 p.m. — Memphis Symphony Big Band at The Grove
  The Grove at GPAC, 1801 Exeter Rd. — Germantown · $30 adults; $5 ages 5–18; under 4 free
  [FAMILY-FRIENDLY] [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY] [ADVANCE TICKET]
  Swing, samba and classic dance-band arrangements feature vocalist Kortland Whalum and MSO principal trumpeter Scott Moore.

• Doors 7 p.m.; show 8 p.m. — The Band CAMINO Homecoming
  Satellite Music Hall, 1291 Autumn Ave. — Crosstown · Current price at checkout · All ages
  [ADVANCE TICKET]
  The Memphis-formed pop-rock band inaugurates the new 1,300-capacity concert room with two homecoming shows. Friday is the first public concert; an encore follows Saturday.

Saturday, September 5

• 9 a.m.–4:30 p.m. — Ghost River First Saturday Paddle
  Wolf River Ghost River section, departing near Moscow, Tennessee · $25 nonmembers; free for Wolf River Conservancy members; rentals extra
  [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY] [ADVANCE REGISTRATION]
  A seven-mile guided trip through cypress swamp and the narrow Ghost River channel. Registration closes at noon today, September 3; proper boat and PFD required.

• Noon–4 p.m. — Metal Museum at Overton Park Grand Opening
  Former Memphis College of Art/Rust Hall, 1930 Poplar Ave. — Overton Park · Free with RSVP
  [FREE] [FAMILY-FRIENDLY] [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY] [ADVANCE RSVP]
  Tour the transformed museum, see its inaugural exhibitions and watch metalworking demonstrations at the institution’s biggest milestone in 47 years.

• 2 or 7:30 p.m. — Speak, Salvation, Speak — closing weekend
  Hattiloo Theatre Main Stage, 37 S. Cooper St. — Overton Square · $60
  [ADVANCE TICKET]
  Harry Lennix stars in Ekundayo Bandele’s conflict between Pentecostal faith and ancestral spiritual tradition. Saturday provides two chances before Sunday’s final performance at 2 p.m.

• 5–9 p.m. — Memphis PowerPop Festival
  Overton Park Shell — Overton Park · Free
  [FREE] [FAMILY-FRIENDLY] [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY]
  Joybomb, Your Academy and Sonny Wilsons lead into The Smithereens—a strong, guitar-forward bill with unusually broad appeal.

Sunday, September 6

• 12:30–1 p.m. — 30 Days of Opera at the Memphis JCC
  Memphis Jewish Community Center, 6560 Poplar Ave. — East Memphis · Free
  [FREE] [FAMILY-FRIENDLY] [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY]
  A concise, low-commitment professional opera concert suitable for families and first-time listeners.

• 2–4 p.m. — The Music Man — closing performance
  Theatre Memphis, Lohrey Theatre, 630 Perkins Extended — East Memphis · $15–$62
  [FAMILY-FRIENDLY] [ADVANCE TICKET]
  Final opportunity to see Theatre Memphis’s large-scale production of the classic American musical.

• 2–3 p.m. — Closing-day curator tour: Café Society
  Dixon Gallery & Gardens, 4339 Park Ave. — East Memphis · Free; limited first-come seating
  [FREE] [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY]
  Curator Julie Pierotti provides a final guided look at the exhibition’s paintings of Parisian cafés, nightlife and sociability.

• VIP 4 p.m.; general admission 5–7 p.m. — Craft Food & Wine Festival
  Memphis Brooks Museum of Art — Overton Park · $75–$300 · 21+
  [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY] [ADVANCE TICKET]
  More than 35 local makers offer food, wine, cocktails and spirits inside the museum, with live music and access to the galleries.

Monday, September 7

• 7 p.m. — Board Games, Bad Movies & Beer Bust
  Hi Tone Small Room — Crosstown · Free · 21+
  [FREE]
  Included despite recurring because it is precisely the kind of oddball local hangout that fits a quiet Labor Day Monday: deliberately questionable films, communal games and a no-cover neighborhood-room atmosphere.

Tuesday, September 8

• 10–11 a.m. — Adult Tap Class
  Watkins Studio Theater at GPAC — Germantown · $20 drop-in
  [ADVANCE TICKET]
  A participatory dance option for adults who would rather make performance than watch it; enrollment in the full eight-week session is also available.

• Doors 7 p.m.; show 8 p.m. — Chance the Rapper: Coloring Book 10th Anniversary Tour
  Satellite Music Hall — Crosstown · Current price at checkout · All ages
  [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY] [ADVANCE TICKET]
  A full-album anniversary show brings one of the decade’s defining independent rap releases into Memphis’s newest major music room.

Wednesday, September 9

• 5–8 p.m. — Food Truck Garden Party
  Memphis Botanic Garden — East Memphis · Included with admission: $12 adults, $10 seniors, $7 ages 2–12; under 2 and members free
  [FAMILY-FRIENDLY]
  Seven food trucks, creative vendors, activities and live music by Movie Night make this installment more substantial than a routine food-truck gathering. Dogs are welcome; canceled if raining.

• 7:30 p.m. — Yacht Rock Revue: Primetime Tour
  Graceland Soundstage — Whitehaven · $47.75 advance/$54 day of show, including fees
  [ONE-NIGHT-ONLY] [ADVANCE TICKET]
  An elaborately polished recreation of late-1970s and early-1980s soft rock, delivered with enough costuming and stagecraft to feel closer to a production than a standard tribute concert.