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Pink Palace Museum’s Theater and Planetarium Open this Weekend

CREDIT: Courtesy of Memphis Pink Palace Museum

Just in time to dodge the beastly July heat, opening weekend for Memphis Pink Palace Museum’s CTI Giant Screen Theater offers dinosaurs, sharks, and canines.

“We’re going to have an exciting lineup of movies and shows, including daily showings of Dinosaurs of Antarctica and weekend showings of the original 1975 version of Jaws on the giant screen,” says Museum marketing manager Bill Walsh. “In the planetarium, we’ll feature daily showings of the popular Black Holes show.”

Courtesy of Memphis Pink Palace Museum

Dinosaurs of Antarctica

Guests are highly encouraged to arrive early to purchase tickets to movies and planetarium shows as there are entry protocols including temperature checks, entry questions, and the like that require additional time, along with seating restrictions. As a further safety precaution, guests will be required to wear masks at all times. Concession items will not be available at the theater entrance. However, candy and drinks can be purchased at the Museum Store.

“We are limiting seating capacities to 15 percent to ensure safe social distancing and are requiring guests to wear masks at all times and places,” Walsh says.

Fifteen percent equates to 50 viewers in the theater and 20 stargazers in the planetarium. Yes, this is opening weekend for the planetarium as well. Both venues will be open Tuesday through Sunday with several showtimes daily. The planetarium will bring back the popular Black Holes along with new shows, Our Sky Tonight and laser animated Legends of the Night Sky.

Museum members receive one dollar off ticket price. Individual and family museum memberships are available and can be used in over 360 other ASTC-affiliated museums around the world.

Memphis Pink Palace Museum, visit website for Theater and Planetarium show schedule, memphismuseums.org. Weekend shows start on July 23rd and continue through August 30th; $6-$16 per show, $14-$30 includes Museum exhibits.

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The New Planetarium is Dope and Space is Terrifying

Edit 1/30: The Pink Palace has confirmed that they are going to host live music in the Planetarium. “Space has no limits!” said Ronda Cloud, who handles publicity for the Museum. 

The day has come! The new Sharpe Planetarium, now known as the Autozone Dome, at the Pink Palace Museum is back in action. The old slide projectors are gone, replaced by digital “Full Dome” technology. In the place of the analog lighting effects is a more movie-like experience. 

This morning, a crowd of press, Mayor Jim Strickland, corporate representatives from Autozone and other private sponsors gathered for the grand opening of the new dome. The renovated planetarium is roomier, with a space near the the front of the theater that one of the presenters mentioned may be eventually used for live music. Hopefully this means more local multi-media performances — what could be cooler than opera or electronica or underground rap paired with star graphics? The planetarium manager also joked (I think it was a joke) that they could perform wedding ceremonies inside. 

After a tour through some of the neater educational features of the new planetarium, all controlled by an iPad, we watched a program called “Firefall.” Firefall is a narrative about the life and death of space debris such as meteors, meteoroids, meteorites and asteroids. The graphics were excellent and, while the storytelling was true-to-form campy, “Firefall” proved both visually and narratively gripping. I learned: space is horrifying, mass extinctions by way of space rocks are imminently possible, and, as Carl Sagan put it, there are billions and billions of stars out there. 

For those who miss the older technology, here is a useful timeline of planetariums. For those who want to book their band inside the new planetarium, I have reached out for comment from the Museum and will keep you updated. In the mean time, the new planetarium should be on the top of your list for the best date spots in town. 

The New Planetarium is Dope and Space is Terrifying

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Pink Palace Planetarium Re-opens January 30th

The Sharpe Planetarium at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum has been upgraded with full-dome digital video, and it will re-open to the public on Saturday, January 30th.

The planetarium will show Firefall, which highlights the impacts of comets and asteroids on the Earth’s surface, on opening day. 

The planetarium first opened in December 1954, after the Memphis Astronomical Society hosted a few public forums to gain support for the idea. They originally considered opening the planetarium at the Mid-South Fairgrounds, Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College), or Memphis State (now the University of Memphis). But they ended up settling on the Pink Palace, which is where the society’s members often gathered on the lawn for star-gazing. 

The Pink Palace is working on a website to pay homage to the vintage planetarium, and they’re asking visitors to share (via email) memories and photos from its old days. 

Pink Palace Planetarium Re-opens January 30th