Who Is Number Eighty-Nine?

Somewhere in Batavia right now there's a stack of trading cards nobody outside the stadium gate has seen. It's card three of a ten-card set, and here's the strange part: the other nine don't exist yet. The back doesn't print a name. It just asks, "Who is number 89?" and gives you a code to scan. That's Friday night. We'll get there.

Welcome to Batavia This Week, the teen and student edition. This week is about getting in the room. Not scrolling the room. Being in it.

Start Monday night. The Comedy Vault on East Wilson Street runs an open mic every single Monday at eight in the evening, with local comics and seasoned ones sharing the same five minutes of stage. It's free to get in, there's a two-item minimum, and there are buy-one-get-one appetizers. One honest catch: it's eighteen and over only. So this one's for seniors and the just-graduated crowd. If you've ever written jokes in your notes app and never said them out loud, this is the lowest-stakes room in town to change that.

Tuesday afternoon, the Batavia Moose Lodge on South Batavia Avenue hands its stage to people your age. It's the Teen Talent Showcase, starting at two thirty in the afternoon, featuring The Skrew Ups, Liv Hatfield, and School of Rock. The Skrew Ups have been playing together since twenty twenty-three, with Lincoln Smith on bass. That's the part I want you to sit with. Three years of practice rooms and figuring it out, and now a lodge that's been in Batavia since nineteen eleven is putting them in front of a crowd. Bands don't grow without people in the seats. Be a person in a seat.

Thursday gives you two very different options. First, the 1833 Leadership Academy has Men's Fellowship in Batavia. Eighteen thirty-three works with Batavia teens and young adults on mentorship, honest conversation, and servant leadership practiced from the ground up. There's no time listed on the calendar, so message them before you go. If you've been looking for something with more substance than another group chat, that's the door.

Then at seven in the evening, Team Trivia at The Sidecar Supper Club and Beer Garden on North River Street. It's free, it runs every Thursday, and Go 4 It Entertainment brings six rounds of general trivia with musical hints and toss-up questions. Free prizes for the winners. Bring three friends and split the categories. Somebody's got to know the music round, and it's probably you.

Friday is the crowded night. At six in the evening, Water Street Studios throws open the gallery for Second Fridays in the Arts District, and this one's their seventeenth anniversary show. It's free, donations appreciated, and you can wander over to their neighbors at Kiss the Sky and Warehouse Fifty-Five. Water Street is a nonprofit where kids' classes and resident artists share the same building, which means the people whose work is on the wall are usually standing right there. If you're building a portfolio, or thinking about art school, or just curious what it looks like to make things for real, go ask them something.

And then, Bulldog Stadium. Sophomores kick off at four thirty in the afternoon, varsity at seven, against Lake Park. It's Difference Maker Night, and everyone who walks through the gate gets that free trading card. Students are handing them out at the gates. They're expecting somewhere between two and four thousand people. The card shows a Batavia receiver from the early nineteen-eighties who never really left, and who's been on a Bulldog sideline most Friday nights for thirty years. It does not tell you his name. You scan the code on the back to find out.

So come early. Get the card. Scan it before the person next to you does, then watch them guess wrong. Tickets are through GoFan, and if you can't be there, it's on HUDL or BATV. You can hit the gallery at six and still make kickoff if you move.

Saturday morning, if you can get up, Water Street Studios is out in the wild at the Batavia Farmers Market on North River Street starting at eight in the morning, running a Kids Tent with a family-friendly art activity. If you've got a younger sibling to haul around anyway, this is the easy win. It's free, it's outside, and the artists running it are worth talking to.

That's the week. Say the joke out loud, sit in the front row for somebody's band, and go find out who number eighty-nine is. The full list of everything happening in town is at bataviail.co. This has been Batavia This Week.