If you’re not among the 40,000 people from all 50 states and 21 countries clutching a wristband to this year’s sold-out Big Ears Festival, you’re still very much in the game. Dozens of Big Ears events are free. As in: just walk in.
Panels, podcasts and assorted brain food at PostModern Sound Exchange and the Blue Note Lounge. Music spilling out of the Knoxville Museum of Art. You can sort it all by “Free” on the website or app, but honestly, you could also just wander and run into something interesting.
Also in orbit: Old City nonprofit venue The Pilot Light is back with What For?, its own three-day, 39-band, entirely free festival and reminder that Knoxville’s boundary-pushing music scene continues to stretch its edges. Many more bars, galleries and venues are in the spirit as well…