Jazz, theater, and one huge shark are a few of your options this holiday weekend on the First Coast.Friday, May 23-Sunday, May 25 – The 2014 Jacksonville Jazz Festival is upon us, with headliners Al Jarreau, Boney James, and Average White Band. Local acts include Tropic of Cacner, Gary Starling Group, Von Barlow. Stages along Bay Street, the Shipyards, another near Newnan Street, and at the Jacksonville Landing. Also Jazz After Dark, Art in the Heart of Downtown art show and sale features the work of talented artists and master artsians from around the country. More info at VisitJacksonville.com.
Friday, May 23-Sunday, May 25 – Bay at the Moon, down-home comedy by Ian Mairs, closes on Sunday at the Atlantic Beach Experimental Theatre. Mairs, who also directs, explores the ties that bind siblings and the boundaries they set to maintain some semblance of sanity. More info at ABETTheatre.com.
Sunday, May 23 – Jacksonville's Museum of Science & History presents the grand opening of Megalodon: Largest Shark That Ever Lived. The exhibit will introduce you to the 60-foot-long behemoth, whose giant mouth bristled with 276 teeth. MOSH is celebrating the grand opening with a beach-themed party that will include a Beach Boys cosmic concert, hula hoop and limbo contests, shark-themed arts and crafts, and visits from Jacksonville Beach lifeguards and fossil collectors from Coastal Fossil Adventures. Saturday's event runs from 10 a.m.-6 p.m., the exhibit runs through September. More info at TheMOSH.org.
Monday, May 26 – The Memorial Park Association is hosting a Memorial Day Breakfast in Jacksonville's Memorial Park off Riverside Ave. from 9-10:30 a.m. to honor the centennial anniversary of the start of World War I. Memorial Park is home to the only site in the state dedicated to the 1,220 Floridians who sacrificed their lives during World War I. The names of those who gave their lives are inscribed on parchment and placed in a lead box within a bronze box inside the Life statue. Keynote speaker Wayne Wood will address the history of the park and the significance of the Life sculpture, refreshments followed by ultimate Frisbee.
Also this weekend... The Jacksonville Suns are at home this weekend. Tickets for Styx, Foreigner, and Don Felder at the St. Augustine Amplitheatre are sold out.
You can see more events at The Specktator's Facebook page.
Remember to tune in to First Coast Connect Thursdays at around 9:50 a.m. to hear 'Around Town' with Jacksonville Magazine's Kerry Speckman for a preview of upcoming weekend events.
