Thursday, September 17th, 2026 - Museum month is on, Hard Rock has four big nights in ten days, and Goodyear Blimps out of Pompano.đđđ
Stuff You Wonât Want To Miss This Week:
â TOP PICK THIS WEEK: TODAY through Sep 30 | Broward Attractions and Museums Month. Say âBAMMâ at the ticket window for buy-one-get-one admission at 15 Broward museums and attractions, and walk in free at eight more. Bonnet House, Flamingo Gardens, MODS and History Fort Lauderdale are all in. Pick the one youâve been driving past for years.
TODAY through Sep 30 | Dine Out Lauderdale. More than 170 restaurants across Broward running fixed-price menus, lunch from $35 and dinner from $45. Use the filters on the site and try somewhere new.
TODAY, 10am-6pm | Build, Break, Bridge at Bailey Contemporary Arts in Pompano Beach. Luke Jenkins builds, breaks, and rebuilds his materials into the show. Opening week.
TODAY, 10am-4pm, meet the artists at 6pm | Viva Fort Lauderdale opens at History Fort Lauderdale. A free exhibit of Hispanic art and culture at the New River Inn, running through October 25.
TONIGHT, 5:30-7:30pm | Yappy Hour at The Dog Spot at Huizenga Park. Bring the dog. Downtown happy hour with a lawn.
TONIGHT, 7-9pm | Lyrics Lab Open Mic at The HIVE Black Box Theater in Pompano Beach. Poets and songwriters, and the mic is open if youâve been meaning to.
TONIGHT | Jutes, Mothica and Wilt at Culture Room. Three acts, one small room, and a fun diversion for a Thursday night.
Friday, noon-1:30pm | Riverwalk Tunes on Top at Tunnel Top Plaza on Las Olas. Free lunchtime live music, Wednesdays and Fridays through October 9. Take your lunch outside and enjoy.
Friday (opening day) | I AM WILD: A Charley Harper Exhibit at the Museum of Discovery and Science. The mid-century nature artistâs birds and beasts, included with admission, which is BOGO this month (see number 1).
Friday, 5:30-7pm | The Great Toy Rescue. Bring toys with life left in them, take home something new-to-you. Free, monthly, and exactly what the Zero Waste game, part of the Future Studies experience at our school has been practicing.
Friday, 6pm | Latin Fest in Oakland Park at Jaco Pastorius Park. Music, food, and Hispanic Heritage Month in the park named for the bass player.
Friday evening | Old Townâs Backyard Jam in Old Town Pompano. The free outdoor concert series is back for the season.
Friday, 7-10pm | Carter Park Jamz. The cityâs free concert series in Carter Park. Bring a chair or blanket.
Friday, 8pm | Nikki Glaser at Hard Rock Live. The Golden Globes host, live, an hour of not being able to breathe.
Friday Night | DOMi & JD BECK at Culture Room. Two virtuosos, a keyboard and a drum kit, and the most musicianship youâll see in a club this year.
Also Friday Night | Outdoor Movies Fort Lauderdale. enjoy a fun showing of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Saturday morning | 41st Annual International Coastal Cleanup. Browardâs beaches, all at once, the biggest volunteer morning of the year. Gloves, water, sunscreen. The beach doesnât clean itself.
Saturday, 9-10am | FTL Free Workout Saturdays at Huizenga Park. Free, outdoors, downtown, before it gets hot.
Saturday | Fire Station Open House in Pompano Beach. Hands-on Stop the Bleed and CPR with the people who do it for a living. Go learn the thing you hope you never need.
Saturday, 5:30-11:30pm | Halfway to St. Paddyâs Day at The Galway Shawl. Because six months is a long time to wait.
Saturday, 6-10pm | Downtown Hollywood ArtWalk. Free. Mural tour at 6, gallery tour at 7, live music at 8, a magic show at 9, and an artisan market the whole time. Hollywoodâs best night of the month.
Saturday, 7pm | Miramar Latin Music Festival at Miramar Regional Park.
Saturday, 7:30pm | Elsten Torres: From Fulano to Forever at the Amaturo Theater, Broward Center. The Cuban-born songwriter, a career in one night.
Saturday, 8pm | Zac Brown Band at Hard Rock Live. The Love & Fear Tour.
Saturday, 10:30pm-2:30am | Emo Night Brooklyn at Revolution Live. You will know every word. Go scream them.
Sunday, 10am-noon | Kreyatif & Kalm Crafting with Taisha at Huizenga Park. Slow Sunday morning to keep your hands busy.
Sunday | Vinyasa with Nzingah at Las Olas Oceanside Park. Free yoga by the water. The lowest-friction Sunday plan on this list.
Sunday, noon-4pm | Flamingo Flea at Tarpon River Brewing. Handmade and vintage at a brewery. Our most reliable find of the month.
Sunday | Panthers vs. Hurricanes, preseason at Amerant Bank Arena. First hockey of the season back in the building.
Sunday, 7pm | John Fogerty and Steve Winwood at Hard Rock Live. Two of the great voices of the last sixty years on one stage.
Sun Sep 20 through Sun Sep 27, 7:30pm | School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play at The HIVE Black Box Theater, Pompano Beach. Jocelyn Biohâs comedy about ambition and colorism at a Ghanaian boarding school. One week only.
Tuesday Sep 22, 6pm | Sunset Yoga with Las Olas Yoga Studio at Huizenga Park, then the Two Mile Run Club at 6:30. Free, both.
Tuesday Sep 22 | Michael Franti Trio at Revolution Live. The most joyful room in town that night.
Wednesday Sep 23, 6:30pm | Think and Drink Trivia at Huizenga Park, or Community Bingo Night at the E. Pat Larkins Center in Pompano, free.
Thursday Sep 24, 7:30pm | TLC, Salt-N-Pepa and En Vogue at Hard Rock Live. Three acts, one night, every song you danced to in 1994.
Thursday Sep 24 | Living Room Concert Series at The HIVE, Pompano Beach. Intimate, monthly, and the kind of show where you can see the guitaristâs hands.
SAVE THE DATES for Next Week
Fri Sep 25, 5-8pm | Founding Families Fall Festival at the Stranahan House. The oldest house in Fort Lauderdale throws its fourth fall festival on the river.
Fri Sep 25, 6:30pm | Monthly Movie on the Lawn at Huizenga Park. Blankets, chairs, downtown skyline behind the screen.
Sat Sep 26, 10am-5pm | Worldwide Day of Play at MODS. Hands-on science all day, BOGO with the BAMM password.
Sat Sep 26, noon | Pets in the Plaza, Fall Edition, at Plantation Walk, 321 N University Dr. [VERIFY: listing found on an aggregator; confirm on Plantation Walkâs own page before send.]
Sat Sep 26, 5-9pm | Hispanic Heritage Festival at the Charles F. Dodge City Center, Pembroke Pines.
Sat Sep 26, 6-9pm | Salsa in September in the City Hall courtyard, Coconut Creek. Free, outdoors, dance lesson first.
Sat Sep 26, 6:30-9pm | Silent Disco at Huizenga Park. Three channels, one lawn, no neighbors complaining.
Sat Sep 26, 7-11pm | FAT Village Art Walk, Flagler Village. Last Saturday of the month, rain or shine, dogs welcome, free Sun Trolley from the Searstown lot.
Sat Sep 26 | Three at the Broward Center: Miamibloco: From the Streets to the Stage at The Parker, Legacy: A Tribute to Ravi Shankar, and the Aerial Arts Society Competition at the Miniaci.
Sat Sep 26, 7:30pm | James Taylor at Hard Rock Live.
Sat Sep 26 | Panthers vs. Lightning, preseason at Amerant Bank Arena.
Sun Sep 27, noon-4pm | Huizenga Park Community Market. Free, outdoors, downtown.
Sun Sep 27, noon-5pm | Free Fort Lauderdale Neighbor Day at NSU Art Museum. Last Sunday of every month, city residents walk in free. Bring an ID with your address on it.
Sun Sep 27, 7pm | Rodrigo Teaser: Michael Lives Forever at The Parker. The Michael Jackson tribute everyone who has seen it talks about.
Our Ask: BAMM unlocks more than 20 local museums this month. Which one have you always meant to visit and never have? Reply with your, and next week weâll make the case for going.
Featured Fort Lauderdale
One of the Four Goodyear Blimps on Earth Lives in Pompano Beach
Youâve probably seen it, drifting over the beach on a Sunday or hanging above the stadium on a Dolphins broadcast, moving so slowly it looks parked. What most people donât know is where it sleeps.
There are four Goodyear blimps in the world. One is in Ohio. One is in California. One is in Germany. The fourth lives at the Pompano Beach Airpark, in a 45,000-square-foot hangar big enough to hold two of them fully inflated. It is the only Goodyear blimp on the entire East Coast, and it has been based here since 1979, when the city leased Goodyear a corner of the airfield and a local paper called what followed âblimpmania.â
The airship is called Wingfoot Two. It is 246 feet long, about the length of a Boeing 747 fuselage, and 58 feet tall. Top speed is 73 miles an hour, which it almost never uses. Ten seats in the gondola. Goodyearâs first blimp, the Pilgrim, went up on June 3, 1925, and the company marked a century in the sky last year.
When it isnât covering a game somewhere in the Southeast, Wingfoot Two flies for the pleasure of the people below it. Up the coast over Broward and Palm Beach, back down again, low enough to read the name.
You canât tour the hangar, and you canât buy a ride. The only passengers are charity-auction winners and the occasional sweepstakes. But you can stand along NE 5th Avenue or at the edge of the Airpark on a flying day and watch a 246-foot aircraft leave the ground with no runway, which is a thing worth doing once in your life.
So... You Think You Know South Florida
You probably already know⌠this newsletter is produced by the folks at Acton Academy Fort Lauderdale, as a gift and connection to our bigger community.
What you might not know is⌠why our school is so focused on connecting with our local community beyond what happens in "classroomâ (we call our learning environment multi-age âStudiosâ or like a one-room schoolhouse but built for the future).
This past week we had two experiences that I think demonstrate ways our learners at Acton are reaching out and leveling up.
The first was the First Aid training conducted by Supreme CPR & First Aid Training. Most schools pursue professional training for their staff. At Acton, we included our older learners (ages 11 to 15) as they prepare for their apprenticeships and other adult-like competencies.
Big shoutout to James Kennett III from Supreme, who was the perfect trainer who made the training both fun and worthwhile. As one of our parents relayed, âI was expecting the group to be grumbling about being at school at 6pm on Friday after a busy week, but they loved it!â
Born and raised in South Florida, James is a firefighter/paramedic in Broward County for 8+ years, and has seen firsthand how much the minutes before help arrives matter, often the whole difference between life and death. Thatâs why he started Supreme CPR & First Aid Training.
He teaches AHA-certified CPR, AED, and First Aid to schools and childcare centers across Broward and Palm Beach County, plus BLS for healthcare providers like dentists, nurses, medical assistants, and EMTs. Every training is hands-on and personal, taught by someone whoâs actually done it in the field.
A second adventure out into the community was more about team-building and bonding, but was fun for the learners as they took on the Great Big Game Show at Dania Pointe.
In both cases, our teenage learners are mixing fun and learning outside of what you expect to see in a typical school day. And thatâs the point!
More Treats To Try
We donât let just anyone sponsor this newsletter. Hereâs who âmade the cutâ this week:
Annual Holistic Womenâs Wellness Event is happening this year in Delray Beach! Use the promo code LAUDERDALE and all H!L readers get $50 off their ticket. Thanks to Ryann Watkin for the tip!
Free Tuition Savings Tool: TuitionPay.ai helps private school families find smarter ways to pay tuition and maximize rewards. See how much you could save: https://www.tuitionpay.ai/heylauderdale
Did you know that the AutoNation IMAX at MODS has extended the showings of The Odyssey through September 30th? If you havenât seen the film that everyone is talking about, you still have a chance. A âmust seeâ on the big(gest) screen.
If you have been looking for music lessons to start the school year, Thoven is an online music academy founded in South Florida, where we help families find 1:1 music lessons that fit their kid and their schedule, from home. We work with a hand-picked, vetted network of teachers, including musicians and educators from schools like The Juilliard School and Berklee College of Music. If youâd like a personalized match, you can reach out to keri@thoven.co to talk to our head of music education.
SAVE THE DATE. Founding Families Fall Festival. Stranahan House. September 25th. Email director@stranahanhouse.org for sponsorship opportunities.
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Quote Of The Week
âThe cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.â
~ Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, now well-known as a poet, critic and screenwriter whose one-liners outlived almost everyone to whom she aimed her wit.
Flotsam & Jetsam
Everything else in the Hey! Lauderdale newsletter is focused on whatâs happening locally in the Great Fort Lauderdale area. But the Flotsam & Jetsam section is reserved for something cool we find online, that is too good not to share.
Well, this week⌠we combined the two. Too good not to share AND it also has a local connection. Our find is called NearbyWiki and it is like a Wikipedia page that you can search for anything nearby.
And as you can see, there is A LOT to see and do all around us. Most are places, but occasionally it gives you something unexpected.
Word Play Of The Week
âCost an Arm and a Legâ
The idiom âcost an arm and a legâ is used to convey that something is very expensive or comes at a high price. It doesnât mean that something literally requires the sacrifice of limbs; rather, itâs a figurative expression indicating that the cost, whether in terms of money, effort, or other resources, is exceedingly high.
Often attributed to soldiers returning from war missing limbs often incurred significant medical expenses, and itâs believed that this phrase may have emerged from the literal cost, both financially and personally, of such injuries.
Another theory suggests that the phrase may have originated from the world of portrait painting. During the 18th century, it was customary for artists to charge more for portraits that included the subjectâs limbs in the painting, as it required more time and skill to paint them accurately. Hence, a painting that depicted arms and legs would cost more, figuratively âcosting an arm and a leg.â ~ âSource
âUnder-The-Radarâ Openings Job Board
Lots of folks offering cool positions here locally. Maybe thereâs one for you or a friend?
Teaching Artist at Broward Center for the Performing Arts â contract role teaching across genres and age groups through the Centerâs education wing.
Do you have a listing you would like to place here for next week? Hit reply and let us know.
Lastly⌠One Big Idea For Your Week
If you knew for sure you could not fail, would it help you enjoy the journey along the way?
Tell Us How We Are Doing
Every week we are working to make #H!L better for you and to provide a cutting-edge media apprenticeship opportunity for our learners.
Please share your feedback. What do you love? What could we do better FOR YOU? What FTL businesses and experiences should we be highlighting?