Advertisement

Plan your weekend March 13-15

 
Krewes dance in Ybor City during the Rough Riders St. Patrick's Day Night Parade. 	DANIEL WALLACE | Times
 (03/12/2011 Tampa)
Krewes dance in Ybor City during the Rough Riders St. Patrick's Day Night Parade. DANIEL WALLACE | Times (03/12/2011 Tampa)
Published March 12, 2015

Plan your weekend

St. Patrick's Day parties

Rough Riders St. Patrick's Night Parade A river of green krewes, floats and beads will be moving through Ybor Saturday night but first the Hillsborough River itself will be turned a brilliant green for the St. Patrick's Day party in Tampa's Curtis Hixon Park on Saturday. There will be Irish entertainment, games, a children's area, food trucks and Irish beer. Bring at least three nonperishable food items to benefit the Salvation Army and receive a "Saint Patrick's Army" shirt, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. Curtis Hixon Park, 600 N Ashley Drive, Tampa. We have even more events in our huge list online at tbtim.es/stpaddys

Spring break

DJ Jazzy Jeff Will Smith's former partner in rhyme is now, at the ripe old age of 50, a patriarch of hip hop, but he can still cut records with the young'uns. Heralded for being one of the first guys to usher that trademark "scratch" sound into rap music. He's on the stage for Shephard's spring break bash Saturday at 10 p.m. Swedish house music producer John Dahlback plays on Sunday, making for a sweet weekend on the beach. Shephard's Beach Resort, 619 S Gulfview Blvd., Clearwater Beach. $8. (727) 441-6875.

Comedy

Lewis Black He's funny when he's angry, and the beloved grump has a lot of fuel for his show Saturday at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa; $25-$65 at strazcenter.org.

Art

Dali and da Vinci It turns out Leonardo da Vinci and Salvador Dali have a lot in common, and a new exhibition at the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg shows how each used art to explore mathematics, science, social ideas and visual perception. It has facsimiles from Leonardo's notebooks and even a few models of some of his many inventions assembled according to his plans. Leonardo's glider hangs in the atrium. It continues through July 26. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily with extended hours to 8 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays. Admission is $24 adults; $22 seniors, military, police and firefighters; $17 teens and college students with ID; $10 children 6 to 12; and free for children younger than 6. On Thursdays from 5 to 8 p.m., admission is $10 adults and $8 children. The museum will be closed March 27-29 during the Grand Prix races. thedali.org or (727) 823-3767.

Books

Florida Antiquarian Book Fair While there are lots of celebrations of St. Petersburg's literary scene continues (see sunlitfestival.org) the granddaddy of them all is the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair at the Coliseum, 535 Fourth Ave. N, loaded with rare and unusual books, maps and prints. It's $6 or weekend pass of $10 Friday-Sunday.

Theme park

Busch Gardens Food & Wine Festival Another week, another installment of Busch Gardens' Food & Wine Festival and its concert series. The Celebration kicks off Saturday with Kool and the Gang, who will bring more than four decades of soul, funk, R&B, and a touch of adult contemporary smooth jams to the stage. On Sunday, Massachusetts emo pop quartet Boys Like Girls will croon over swooning fans singing along to Two Is Better Than One, Love Drunk and The Great Escape. Concerts are included with park admission, and food and drink offerings are in the $4-$8 range. Find deals on 10-ticket bundles at BuschGardens.com.

Petal power

Art In Bloom The Museum of Fine Art's grand spring tradition of imaginative floral designs by nearly 60 designers in response to artworks in the museum. With the "Monet to Matisse" exhibit in the house, expect a lot of French influence. The special guest this year is National Garden Club judge Tony Todesco, a leading experts on floral displays. He will be giving a floral demonstration at 11 a.m. Friday, when "Art in Bloom" opens. There will be a Flowers After Hours party at 7 p.m. Friday with hors d'oeuvres, cocktails, wine and jazz among the plantscapes; $85. Learn something Sunday at noon when floral designers discuss the arrangements they created to pair with the works on display. Events continue through Monday, and are included with museum admission: $17, $15 seniors, $10 students. Museum of Fine Arts, 255 Beach Drive NE, St. Petersburg. fine-arts.org.

Boxing

Boxeo Telemundo Ready to rumble? The spring season for the popular boxing circuit Boxeo Telemundo comes to Tampa, with former WBO Latin Champion Jonathan "Pitbull" Vidal facing Ricardo "Meserito" Rodriguez in the main event. The matches take place at 8 p.m. Friday at the A La Carte Event Pavilion, 4050 Dana Shores Drive, Tampa. $25-$80. (813) 309-9991.

Take the kids

Pi Day For the first time in a century the calendar and clock get you 10 digits of pi and as part of its annual salute the Dali Museum will have $3.14 admission for educators and special activities; MOSI in Tampa will have a pie-throwing frenzy and Albert Einstein visits and the Mathnasium of Countryside, 2510 N McMullen-Booth Road, at 3:14 on Saturday will have math games and round foods. Free.

Water play

Tampa Bay Boat Show There are three days of boats, fishing gear and watercraft to drool over, but this huge boat show at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg this weekend will also have fishing school seminars, like snook tactics or finding the best scuba and snorkel spots in the Gulf of Mexico. It's all free 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.