Good morning from The Seawall. Saturday is going to be a problem if you only pick one thing.
Dragon Boat Festival on Harrah's Great Lawn. Cannabis Festival on Biloxi Town Green. Chandyfest taking over downtown Gulfport. Carey on the Coast at Jones Park. The Banana Bridge 5K at sunrise. A poetry festival at the Mary C. A Children's Fest in Pass Christian. Three farmers markets. Babyface at Beau Rivage Saturday night. Sister Hazel at the Mary C. the night before.
It's a lot. We're not going to pretend it isn't. Here's the rundown — events first, then everything live and loud across the three counties.
Coast Forecast
Day 1 — Thu Apr 23 — Sunny, breezy, dry
Jackson County (Pascagoula) — High 76 | Low 66 | Rain 0% | Wind SE 10 mph
Harrison County (Gulfport) — High 76 | Low 69 | Rain 0% | Wind SE 15 mph
Hancock County (Bay St. Louis) — High 75 | Low 73 | Rain 0% | Wind SE 15 mph
Day 2 — Fri Apr 24 — Warmer, light south wind, slight chance of an afternoon shower
Jackson County — High 78 | Low 66 | Rain 20% | Wind S 5–10 mph
Harrison County — High 78 | Low 69 | Rain 20% | Wind S 5–10 mph
Hancock County — High 77 | Low 70 | Rain 20% | Wind S 10–15 mph
Day 3 — Sat Apr 25 — The wet day. Showers and thunderstorms likely
Jackson County — High 79 | Low 65 | Rain 50% | Wind SW 5–10 mph
Harrison County — High 79 | Low 67 | Rain 60% | Wind S 5–10 mph
Hancock County — High 79 | Low 69 | Rain 60% | Wind S 5–10 mph
Day 4 — Sun Apr 26 — Warmer, mostly clearing, scattered storm chance
Jackson County — High 80 | Low 68 | Rain 20% | Wind S 5–10 mph
Harrison County — High 80 | Low 71 | Rain 20% | Wind S 5–10 mph (variable becoming S)
Hancock County — High 80 | Low 72 | Rain 20% | Wind S 5–10 mph
Bottom line: Three of four days are clean and warm in the upper 70s with light south winds. Saturday is the wet one — a 50–60% chance of showers and thunderstorms across all three counties — and Saturday is when most of the weekend is happening. Bring a rain jacket to the dragon boats. The cannabis fest, Chandyfest, and Carey on the Coast all run rain-or-shine; Children's Fest and the 5K may shift if the morning gets nasty. Sunday recovers.
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What's Happening on the Coast
Curated by county. Saturday is the day. Sunday is for sleeping in and then deciding whether to actually go to yoga.
Jackson County
MS Poetry Society Spring Festival — Sat Apr 25, 9 AM–5 PM, Mary C. O'Keefe Cultural Arts Center, Ocean Springs. All-day festival from the Mississippi Poetry Society. Free, open to the public. Readings, workshops, and the kind of room the Coast doesn't host often enough. The Mary C. is also doing a Sister Hazel show the night before — the building's having a weekend.
Ocean Springs Fresh Market — Sat Apr 25, 9 AM–1 PM, L&N Depot Plaza (1000 Washington Ave). The Mississippi-certified, producer-only Saturday market. Organic produce, baked goods, plants, herbs. The natural breakfast stop if you're already in town for the poetry festival.
Dolly's Rhinestone Round Up Pub Crawl — Sat Apr 25, 3:30–9 PM, Downtown Ocean Springs. Costume pub crawl through downtown. Rhinestones encouraged. Honest assessment: it'll be either the most fun thing on the Coast that night or a complete mess. Possibly both.
Sourdough Beginners Class — Sat Apr 25, 12–3 PM, Mary C. O'Keefe. Hands-on sourdough class with Meranda from Sucre Dolot Bakery. You go home with starter and dough and the strong opinion that store-bought bread was a mistake.
Healing Yoga for Those Touched by Cancer — Sun Apr 26, 3–4:30 PM, 3670 Groveland Rd. Suite A, Ocean Springs. Ninety minutes of gentle restorative yoga. Suggested $30 to the American Cancer Society. The kind of small thing that adds up.
Harrison County
Gulf Coast Dragon Boat Festival — Sat Apr 25, from 8 AM, Harrah's Great Lawn (Biloxi). Teams of 20 paddlers in 46-foot dragon boats. Loud, fast, occasionally chaotic. All proceeds to United Way of South Mississippi. The single most visually-loud event of the weekend, which is saying something this Saturday.
5th Annual Gulf Coast Cannabis Festival — Sat Apr 25, 11 AM–8 PM, Biloxi Town Green (710 Beach Blvd). Retail and info vendors, food trucks, policy and education sessions. 21+, rain or shine. Five years in. Whatever you think of the topic, the festival itself has gotten serious.
Chandyfest — Sat Apr 25, 11 AM–9 PM, Downtown Gulfport (Chandeleur Brewing Co.). Eleventh annual. Brewery block party — food, vendors, live music, downtown taken over for the day. The kind of event where nobody's looking at their watch by 4 PM.
Carey on the Coast — Sat Apr 25, 3–7 PM, Jones Park, Gulfport (1133 20th Ave). William Carey University's free family afternoon. Carnival rides, games, food trucks, live music on the waterfront. Free is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
The LAD Project's 3rd Annual Children's Fest — Sat Apr 25, 10:30 AM–2:30 PM, Trinity Episcopal Church, Pass Christian (125 Church Ave). Games, STEM activities, live entertainment, food. $5/child, adults free. Benefits the LAD Project youth nonprofit.
Hancock County
Hancock County Farmers Market — Sat Apr 25, 8 AM–12 PM, 3068 Longfellow Rd, Bay St. Louis. Weekly Saturday market with produce, vendors, and the Children's Entrepreneur Market — which, if you've never seen kids selling things they made, is worth showing up for on its own.
Bay High Presents Junie B. Jones, the Musical — Fri Apr 24 + Sat Apr 25 at 7 PM, Bay High School (750 Blue Meadow Rd, Bay St. Louis). Bay High's spring musical. Family-friendly. The Junie B. Jones books moved a generation of reluctant readers; the musical is built for the same crowd.
Spring into Stained Glass — Garden Stake Class — Sat Apr 25, 11 AM–4 PM, 405 Blaize Ave, Bay St. Louis. Hands-on workshop with Laurali and Gail. You leave with an 18-inch handcrafted stained-glass garden stake and a new respect for solder.
If you’ve got something happening in Jackson, Harrison, or Hancock that should be on the radar next week, send it over. The goal is to make this sharper every issue.
🎸 Music This Week on the Coast
Everything we could confirm — small venues first, casino rooms in their own block below. Sixteen small-venue gigs, fourteen at the casinos. Thirty acts on the Coast in four nights.
Thursday, April 23
The BSL Trio — Ground Zero Blues Club, Biloxi · 6–9 PM · $10 VIP tables / GA free
Friday, April 24
Sister Hazel — Mary C. O'Keefe Cultural Arts Center, Ocean Springs · 7 PM (doors 6) · ticketed. Sister Hazel in a four-hundred-seat former high school. The math of the venue is half the appeal.
John Clayton White — Ground Zero Blues Club, Biloxi · 7–10 PM · ticketed via TicketWeb. Fourteen-year-old blues guitar prodigy. Go for the music; stay because you'll want to say you saw him before everyone else did.
Shadow Boxing, Dollhaus, Empty Hands, Empty Atlas — The Juke Joint, Ocean Springs · 7 PM. A four-band Friday lineup at the 1911-house-turned-music-room.
St. Alphonsus Spring Soirée: An Evening of Light — Ocean Springs Civic Center, Ocean Springs · 7 PM · ticketed (live band among the program)
Phil Proctor — Murky Waters Blues & BBQ, Gulfport · 6:30–9:30 PM
Karaoke Night — Trax Bar & Grill, Long Beach · weekly Friday. Trax does this every week and it earns the room.
Saturday, April 25
Saturday Brunch w/ Johnny Slade — Ground Zero Blues Club, Biloxi · 11 AM–2 PM · $14 bottomless mimosas with entrée, no cover
Brian James LIVE at Rags to Riches — Bay St. Louis · 1 PM
Chandyfest live music — Chandeleur Brewing Co., Downtown Gulfport · 11 AM–9 PM (rolling lineup through the day; see Events above)
The Michael Vincent Band — Murky Waters Blues & BBQ, Ocean Springs · 7–10 PM
Comedy and Blues feat. Rita Brent — Ground Zero Blues Club, Biloxi · 7 PM · Eventbrite
After Dark at The Juke Joint — SevVven, Gaslight Empire, Break Signal — The Juke Joint, Ocean Springs · doors 8:30 PM, music 9:30 PM
Live music — Trax Bar & Grill, Long Beach · weekly Saturday
Sunday, April 26
Sunday Brunch w/ Clare Cunningham — Ground Zero Blues Club, Biloxi · 11 AM–2 PM · $14 bottomless mimosas with entrée, no cover
Open Jam with 3hG — The Juke Joint, Ocean Springs · 10:37 PM. Sunday open jam — bring an instrument or just listen.
🎰 Casino Row
The big stages. Different night out, different crowd. Eight separate rooms going Saturday alone at Hard Rock, Hollywood, Silver Slipper, Margaritaville, and Beau Rivage.
Thursday, April 23
Gillis Silo — Silver Slipper Beach Bar, Bay St. Louis · 6–9 PM
Thirsty Thursdays feat. DJ Shimmer — Hard Rock Center Bar, Biloxi
Live music at Lost Key Bar — Margaritaville Resort, Biloxi · weekly Thursday lineup
Friday, April 24
Bayou Stampede — Silver Slipper Stage Bar, Bay St. Louis · 7–11 PM
Ado Soul & the Tribe — Hollywood Casino Gulf Coast, Bay St. Louis · showtime TBD
Saturday, April 25
Babyface (Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds) — Beau Rivage Theatre, Biloxi · 8 PM · ticketed. Thirteen-time Grammy winner in one of the biggest rooms on the Coast. A name you can sing four bars of without thinking.
STARZ @ Hollydeck — Hollywood Casino Gulf Coast, Bay St. Louis · 4 PM
Toni O. Band — Silver Slipper Stage Bar, Bay St. Louis · 7–11 PM
Ado Soul & the Tribe — Hollywood Casino Gulf Coast, Bay St. Louis · showtime TBD
Klass Kings — Hard Rock Center Bar, Biloxi · 9 PM
DJ Doc Roc — Hard Rock Live Remix, Biloxi · 10 PM
Karaoke w/ MC Angie — Hard Rock Road House 777, Biloxi · 9 PM–1 AM · 21+, no cover
Live music at Margaritaville Café — Margaritaville Resort, Biloxi · 7–10 PM weekly
Sunday, April 26
Birdies Boyz @ Hollydeck — Hollywood Casino Gulf Coast, Bay St. Louis · 2 PM
PET ADOPTION OF THE WEEK
We’re keeping this section in the mix for a reason.
There are good dogs and cats sitting in shelters across the Coast right now that deserve more visibility than they usually get, and if this newsletter can help put even a little more attention on one of them every week, that’s worth doing.
Every issue we'll feature a pet up for adoption on the Coast.
Shortbread
Meet Shortbread — 12weeks old, female, Labrador Retriever/Crossbreed.
If you’ve been thinking about bringing home a dog or cat, this might be your sign.
LOW TIDE LAUGHS
A Coast newsletter should probably make room for at least one thing that doesn’t ask anything from you except a smirk.
So we are.
Dragon boat season returned to the Coast this week. The pelicans have been watching. One of them, apparently, has been timing.
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A FEW LOCAL LINKS WORTH KEEPING HANDY
If you want to go deeper by county, keep these local sites handy:
Jackson County MS
https://www.jacksoncountyms.com
Harrison County MS
https://www.harrisoncountyms.com
Hancock County MS
https://www.hancockcountyms.com
That’s part of the larger idea here too. The Seawall shouldn’t just point at itself. It should help connect people to the broader local web that already exists across the Coast.
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That’s it for this one.
The Coast doesn’t need more noise. It needs better signal.
That’s the lane.
— Rob
The Seawall