Calendar of Events

Margarita Festival, The Mill & Mine,227 W. Depot Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917, June 14, 2025, 6:00 - 9:00 PM.
VIP hour at 5 pm

Join us at the second annual Knoxville Margarita Festival as your favorite restaurants compete for the title of Best Margarita in town! Work your way through your Sample Passport that includes 10 mini margaritas, plus enjoy entertainment, fun photo ops, and purchase dinner from local food vendors. Not sure if you like your margs salted, shaken, stirred, or frozen? Sip the night away and then vote for your favorite.

BENEFITING: TennGreen Land Conservancy empowers landowners and communities to protect large, connected natural areas that support diversity of life, inspire appreciation of nature, and spark action to protect the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the land that sustains us all.

NEW THIS YEAR! Go VIP and enjoy one-hour early admission, 2 bonus mini margs, light bites during VIP hour, and more!

This event is 21+. Alcohol service ends at 8:45 PM.

Tickets at: https://knoxvillefests.com/margarita

On the Oak Ridge Reservation, located in east Tennessee, over 1100 vascular plants, 72 fish, 34 mammals and over 200 bird species have been observed. The public is invited to nature walks designed to highlight not only the rich flora and fauna diversity of the reservation, but also to demonstrate the work being done to sustainably manage and conserve this resource. Walks will take place on several locations across the Oak Ridge Reservation beginning in late winter through late summer. Reservations must be made in advance by noon the Thursday prior to each walk by contacting Nick Oldham 865-341-3670 (oldhamnv@ornl.gov). More information about these walks is available by contacting Trent Jett at 865-574-9188 (jettrt@ornl.gov).

Reptiles and Amphibians Inventory – Solway Bend
Date: Saturday, June 14
Location: Meet at the parking lot behind (i.e. south of) the ORISE building at the corner of Bethel Valley and Pumphouse Roads.
Time: 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Leader: Lindsey Hayter and Kathy Strunk (CRESO)
Limit: 20 (children are allowed)
Description: We will collect several turtle species, talk about local snake identification and discuss management of local herpetological populations. There will be plenty of opportunities for children to get involved and learn about the animals. Walking will be through fields and over level dirt/gravel roads (very limited distances). Dress in layers, wear sturdy shoes, and bring sunscreen, bug spray and water. No pets please.

Bijou Theatre, 803 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information/tickets: 865-522-0832, https://knoxbijou.org/

Nief-Norf is thrilled to announce our first annual retreat-style new music convention, which will conclude the 2025 Nief-Norf Summer Festival. The gathering will be a convergence of all things education, collaboration, innovation, exploration, performance, & more! Stay tuned for more information regarding presentation, performance, and registration opportunities!

https://www.niefnorf.org/
https://airtable.com/appZRsknOUKjgAcFK/shrYFCe1HP3xGwUqV

33rd Annual Slam in Downtown Knoxville

This marks Knoxville’s fifth time hosting this incredible event—more than almost any other city—because our community continues to embrace the power of poetry and storytelling. Details TBA

https://www.southernfriedpoetryslam.com/2025-tournament-knoxville-tn/

By Greg Allen, Directed by Shelby Frye

Having opened in 1988 and still playing today as the longest-running show in Chicago history, Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind is an ensemble experiment in presenting “30 Plays in 60 Minutes.” Each two-minute play is performed in random order with an interactive audience. An onstage 60-minute timer keeps everyone honest. This collection of 90 comic, tragic, political, personal, and abstract plays gives you the chance to program your own evening of 30 Neo-Futurist plays to reflect the lives and experiences of your own ensemble. Go!

Performances are Thu-Sat 7:30 PM and Sun 3 PM

Theatre Knoxville Downtown, 800 S. Central Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information & tickets: 865-544-1999, www.theatreknoxville.com

The Nief-Norf Summer Festival is a multidisciplinary new music festival that brings together performers, composers, improvisers, scholars, and music technologists for collaboration and exploration of contemporary music within an immersive environment. Hosted in Knoxville, Tennessee, the festival provides opportunities for masterclasses, workshops, and performances with world-renowned faculty at the state-of-the-art Natalie L. Haslam Music Center. Nief-Norf fosters an incredible community of contemporary musicians who create, collaborate, experiment, and problem solve in exploration of what it means to be contemporary musicians and perform for a modern audience.

https://www.niefnorf.org/summerfestival

Electricity for All examines the complex relationship between technology, information, and power through the historical framework of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a key New Deal initiative from the 1930s that introduced electricity to the Tennessee River Valley. The featured artists provide diverse perspectives on the social implications of technological advances, questioning the histories that were lost and the new narratives that emerged. Organized by the KMA.

For additional information and updates, follow the Knoxville Museum of Art on social media:
Facebook: Knoxville Museum of Art, Instagram: @knoxvillemuseumofart, X: @knoxart

Knoxville Museum of Art, 1050 World's Fair Park, Knoxville, TN 37916. Hours: Tu-Sa 10-5, Su 1-5. Information: 865-525-6101, www.knoxart.org. Admission and parking are free.

The Market Square Farmers Market is an open-air, producer-only farmers market managed by Nourish Knoxville and held every Wednesday and Saturday, May through mid-November in the heart of downtown Knoxville. Everything at the Market Square Farmers Market is grown, raised, and/or made by our vendors within a 150-mile radius of Knoxville, TN. Products vary by season and include fresh fruits & vegetables, eggs, honey, pasture-raised meats, edible & ornamental plants, cut flowers, bread & baked goods, jams & jellies, coffee, artisan crafts, and more! We offer SNAP & SNAP Doubling services each market day, Nourish Moves – a free walking incentive program – every Wednesday, and Nourish Kids – a free kids activity – on the 2nd Saturday of each month.

Every Wednesday, May 7 – November 19, 2025, 10 AM – 1 PM
Every Saturday, May 3 – November 22, 2025, 9 AM – 1 PM
*** NO MARKET on Saturday, November 29, 2025.

https://www.nourishknoxville.org/market-square-farmers-market

MAIN GALLERY
A solo show, Injury: Thirteen Studies, featuring recent work by artist Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi (Johannesburg, South Africa)

PROJECT SPACE
From Dark To Blue by Meg White (Milwaukee, WI)

Tri-Star Arts at Candoro Marble Building, 4450 Candora Drive, Knoxville, TN 37920. Hours: Tu-Sa 11-5. Information: https://tristararts.org/visit

Home Runs & Home Teams - A History of the National Pastime in Tennessee
Rogers-Claussen Feature Gallery

As Tennesseeans, baseball is in our DNA, and although the game is common to us, it has never remained the same during anyone’s lifetime. Who were among the first to play baseball in Tennessee? How did 31 Tennessee towns come to host a MiLB team? What makes a day at a Tennessee ballpark an iconic experience? Home Runs & Home Teams provides an overview of the national pastime as it has played out in the Volunteer State. For every story included in the exhibition, there are hundreds more–from players to pennants, from bat makers to bat boys–that could have been shared. So as you “round the bases,” think about your connections to the game, your ties to the past. What does baseball mean to you and to your community? What baseball stories should libraries and museums preserve to share with future Tennesseans? Let’s play ball!

601 S Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902
https://www.easttnhistory.org/exhibitions/home-runs-home-teams/

The Smithsonian’s National Collection of Fishes X-rays represent more than 70 percent of the world’s fish specimens and is the largest and most diverse collection of its kind in the world. Although the X-rays featured in the national collection were made for research purposes, the strikingly elegant images demonstrate the natural union of science and art and are a visual retelling of the evolution of fish. X-Ray Vision: Fish Inside Out, an exhibition from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), showcases these dramatic prints exposing the inner workings of the fish.

The exhibition features 32 black-and-white digital prints of different species of fish. Arranged in evolutionary sequence, these X-rays give a tour through the long stream of fish evolution. The X-rays have allowed Smithsonian and other scientists to study the skeleton of a fish without altering the specimen, making it easier for scientists to build a comprehensive picture of fish diversity.

The exhibition also includes specimens from the collections of the McClung Museum, the Etnier Ichthyological Collection, and the Vertebrate Osteology Collection to highlight research happening with fish specimens at the University of Tennessee.

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, 1327 Circle Park Dr on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. Hours: Tu-Sa 9-5, Sun 12-4. Information: 865-974-2144, https://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/