Weekend Event Planner

These are the 12 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

This weekend in Dallas will be choose-your-own-adventure in terms of events. If you like celebrities, you'll have your choice of big name singers, actors, and reality TV stars. If you like comedy, you'll have a festival and three chances to see a national comedian. There will also be theatrical experiences for kids and adults, an aquatic art display, cultural festival, giant car show, and more.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, March 28

DFW Auto Show
The DFW Auto Show gives automotive enthusiasts the opportunity to experience the latest and greatest vehicles manufacturers have to offer. Taking place at Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in downtown Dallas through Sunday, it will treat visitors to displays from the manufacturers who use the show as a platform to introduce current and future year models.

Dallas Comedy Festival
The Dallas Comedy Festival will celebrate a decade of shows, workshops, and bringing comedy from across the country to Dallas. This year’s festival is the biggest yet, with 213 performers, 46 shows/panels/podcasts, and five stages at venues like Dallas Comedy House, Off the Record, and Independent Bar & Kitchen. Headliners include Daniel Van Kirk, Jaime Moyer and Maribeth Monroe, and The Late 90s. The festival will take place through Saturday.

Disney On Ice presents Mickey's Search Party
Mickey Mouse and his friends will be on hand at Disney On Ice presents Mickey’s Search Party, a brand-new adventure filled with world-class skating, high-flying acrobatics, and unexpected stunts. Taking place at American Airlines Center through Sunday, the show will feature characters from a variety of Disney movies following Captain Hook’s treasure map and looking for clues in the search for Tinker Bell in immersive, fantastic worlds.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents #HearHere: Karamo Live!
Just two weeks removed from the season 3 premiere of Queer Eye, the show's Culture Expert, Karamo Brown, will appear at Winspear Opera House with Karamo Live!. The tour is in support of the release of his first book, Karamo: My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing and Hope. Karamo challenges audience members to consider how their shared labels, burdens and experiences have shaped the way they feel about themselves, and how they relate to the world around them.

Friday, March 29

Texas Music Revolution & Rodeo
KHYI The Range is hosting Texas Music Revolution & Rodeo 23 presented by Deep Ellum Brewing Co. at Oak Point Park and Nature Preserve in Plano. Performers will include Junior Brown, Max Stalling, and Big Gus & Swampadelic on Friday, and Robert Earl Keen, LeeAnn Womack, Roger Clyne and The Peacemakers,Vincent Neil Emerson, Jaime Wyatt, and Zane Williams on Saturday.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Leslie Odom, Jr.
Friday will be T-minus four days until Hamilton finally makes its way to Dallas, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra will celebrate by presenting Leslie Odom Jr., who won a Tony Award as the original Aaron Burr. The concert, taking place daily through Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center, will include Broadway, jazz, and other standards. The concert will be conducted by Jeff Tyzik.

Dallas Theater Center presents Twelfth Night
One of Shakespeare’s finest comedies, Twelfth Night, centers on Viola, who has just lost everything in a shipwreck, including her twin brother. In order to get work, she’s had to disguise herself as man. When hired as a servant to Duke Orsino, she encounters yet one more problem: she’s totally in love with him. Unable to express her feelings without blowing her cover, Viola sets out to fulfill the Duke’s orders, which include wooing another woman. The production will run through April 28 at Wyly Theatre.

Saturday, March 30

Aquashella
Aquashella is an interactive event celebrating aquatic art in all forms. It features coral vendors, freshwater fish breeders, leading industry manufacturers, fish-related gifts, and visual artists from across the U.S. and one-of-a-kind immersive art installations inspired by the art of aquascaping and underwater creatures. It also features contests for aquascaping, live seminars with experts and YouTubers in the field, raffle prizes, kids' activities, and more. The event will take place on Saturday and Sunday in Grand Place at Fair Park.

Festival of Joy
Kalachandji’s and the Crow Museum of Asian Art present the second annual Festival of Joy, the kick-off for the Dallas Mayor’s Cultural Month. The event will begin with a parade from the Dallas Museum of Art on Flora Street to Klyde Warren Park, where there will be classical music and dance performances, a variety of cultural and educational exhibits, a free vegetarian feast, and more.

Ali Wong: The Milk & Money Tour
Ali Wong is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actress who's best known for her two hit Netflix specials, Baby Cobra and Hard Knock Wife. She's also voicing the co-lead in the upcoming Netflix animation show Tuca and Bertie, alongside Tiffany Haddish, and starring in a Netflix movie that she co-wrote with her longtime friend and creative collaborator, Randall Park. She'll perform twice, Saturday and Monday, at Winspear Opera House, and also at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory on Tuesday.

Rita Ora in concert
Fresh off her appearance at MTV Re:Define on Friday, Rita Ora will put on a concert at The Statler. The British singer made waves with a series of No. 1 songs in the U.K. off of her 2012 debut album, and she's continued to be in the spotlight thanks to her supporting role as Mia Grey in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. She'll play in support of her 2018 album, Phoenix.

Sunday, March 31

George W. Bush Presidential Center presents Grateful American: A Conversation with Gary Sinise
Award-winning actor and director Gary Sinise will appear at the George W. Bush Presidential Center to tell the story of how he found his calling: To see that those who defend this country and its freedoms are never forgotten. Col. Miguel Howe, USA (Ret.) will lead a conversation with Sinise and discuss his new memoir, Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service.

Robert Earl Keen will be one of the performers at Texas Music Revolution & Rodeo, taking place March 29 and 30 at Oak Point Park and Nature Preserve in Plano.

Robert Earl Keen/Facebook

Robert Earl Keen will be one of the performers at Texas Music Revolution & Rodeo, taking place March 29 and 30 at Oak Point Park and Nature Preserve in Plano.

event-planner

Gymnastics news

Simone Biles' U.S. gymnastics crown passed to Plano champ Hezly Rivera

2025 Xfinity U.S. Gymnastics Championships

Photo by Alicia Malnati/Getty Images

undefined

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Hezly Rivera was the fresh face a year ago. The newcomer. The teenager on a team of 20-something Olympic gymnasts, doing her best to absorb what she could from Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jade Carey, and Jordan Chiles.

The one thing that stood out, even more than the sometimes otherworldly gymnastics, is the way her fellow gold-medal-winning teammates went about their business.

“They looked so confident,” Rivera said. “They're like, ‘I’m going to go out and I'm going to hit.' It gave me that confidence as well.”

Looks like it.

The now 17-year-old who says she's paying no attention to the idea that she's the leader of the women's program in the early stages of the run-up to the 2028 Olympics certainly looks the part.

Buoyed by a polished steadiness — and a beam routine that finally looked the way it does back home at her home gym, the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy in Plano — Rivera captured her first national title Sunday, August 10 at the U.S. Championships. Her two-day total of 112.000 was good enough to fend off a challenge from Leanne Wong and put her in excellent position to lead the four-woman American delegation at the world championships in Jakarta, Indonesia, in October.

The U.S. title was passed to Rivera from the legendary Biles, who won her historic ninth U.S. Championship in Fort Worth in 2024. She is not currently competing.

Simone Biles, Skye Blakely, Kayla DiCello Gold medalist Simone Biles (center), silver medalist Skye Blakely (left), and Kayla DiCello at 2024 U.S. Championships in Fort Worth's Dickies Arena. Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

Rivera, by far the youngest member of the five-woman team that finished atop the podium in Paris a year ago, bounced back from a shaky performance at the U.S. Classic last month with the kind of measured, refined gymnastics that she attributed to simply “letting go” of whatever pressure she might feel as the lone Olympic gold medalist in a remarkably young field.

“No matter how rough the competition is, I still can get back into the gym and work hard because all those months previously that I’ve been working hard, I know it’s going to show up eventually,” she said. “So it kind of just took a weight off my shoulders.”

Rivera, at the very least, locked up a spot in the world championship selection camp next month. So did Wong, a four-time world championship medalist, budding entrepreneur and pre-med student who shows no signs of slowing down despite years of competing collegiately and at the elite level simultaneously.

Asked how she juggles it all, the 21-year-old who insists she doesn't keep a planner said she lives by the motto “there's time for everything.”

Joscelyn Roberson, a native of Texarkana and an Olympic alternate last summer, shook off an ankle injury suffered at the end of her floor routine to finish third as the three most internationally experienced athletes in the field looked ready to lead after spending most of the last Olympic quad learning from Biles and company.

“You go from, ‘Oh you’re so young, you’re so young,’ to, ‘Oh, you are the older kid,’” the 19-year-old Roberson said. “People say, ‘How are you feeling?’ Like, I honestly don’t feel that different.”

Two summers ago, Roberson was Biles' bouncy sidekick. Now she's among the leaders of the next wave.

“I felt like more responsible to let the little, smaller, less experienced kids know it’s not the end of the day if you have a bad day or if you had one fall,” Roberson said. “I want to help them grow instead of think ‘I have to be perfect.’”

Roberson then walked the walk. Or maybe limped the limp. She appeared ready to make it a three-woman race for first until she turned an ankle on the final tumbling pass of her floor routine.

The rising sophomore at Arkansas gingerly continued on anyway. She gritted her way through her vault dismount, though the five-tenths (0.5) deduction for using an additional pad for her protection took her out of contention for the all-around.

Plano's Hezly Rivera was the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic team in Paris in 2024. Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

Still, the victory hardly came easy for Rivera. She was pushed through four rotations by Wong, who started Sunday with a stuck Cheng vault and didn't relent over the course of two hours.

Rivera responded each time — she posted the top scores on three of the four events — but it wasn't until she walked off the podium following her floor routine with victory in hand that she could relax.

“Everything fell into place,” Rivera said. “I tried not to get too overwhelmed because nerves obviously can be there, especially when you know you’re in a spot to win a national title, but I just took all pressure off myself.”

Skye Blakely of Dallas, a fellow WOGA gym trainee who was injured at the Olympic Trials in both 2021 and 2024, was sublime on both uneven bars and balance beam to put herself in consideration to make the world team.

gymnastics simone biles awards hezly rivera plano olympic coverage olympic trials sports