Big changes are in store for the Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival, the three-day event that debuted in 2019 at downtown San Diego’s Embarcadero Marina Park North and drew 35,000 people to its most recent edition last May.
Wonderfront concluded Sunday, rain-free, with 4 Non Blondes’ reunion and Jason Mraz
Wonderfront’s producers are now planning to move the festival from spring to fall. They are also seeking to relocate the event — which has featured everyone from Gwen Stefani, Weezer and Ben Harper to Jason Mraz, The Roots and Lainey Wilson — to a new, yet-to-be-determined location.
It’s the latest twist for Wonderfront, which launched in 2019 but was dark in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic shutdown. The festival resumed in 2022, went dark again in 2023, then returned in 2024 and again last year, but with a decline in attendance.
“Wonderfront is looking forward to bringing the festival’s fifth installment to San Diego in 2026,” Paul Thornton, the festival’s co-founder, told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
“We are working very hard through multiple application processes with various state and local agencies and organizations to meet all regulatory and environmental requirements. And while we were hopeful to hold the festival again in May, this time-consuming process is making it difficult to ensure we produce a spring festival that meets our high standards. So, we are now targeting fall; look for announcements in the coming weeks.”
Port of San Diego Senior Public Information Officer Brianne Mundy Page told the Union-Tribune: “Wonderfront is not currently scheduled to occur on Port tidelands in 2026.” But she indicated the Port is open to working again with the festival, which has waived its park permit fees for the event.
“The Port of San Diego proudly supported the Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival in 2019, 2022, 2024 and 2025,” Page said, “And the Port remains open to hosting the 2026 event on the San Diego Bay waterfront.”
Wet, cold weather at the 2025 Wonderfront festival did not dampen the enthusiasm of attendees. (John Meyer)
Exactly where else on the waterfront the festival could take place is unclear. But Thornton noted a number of challenges Wonderfront experienced at Embarcadero Marina Park North, which was previously the home of the now-defunct San Diego Blues Festival and the San Diego Smooth Jazz Festival, which is now held at the nearby Rady Shell.
“The Embarcadero Marina Park North venue space has some amazing amenities on the water, and the Port Staff has been amazing to work with,” Thornton said.
“But it is very tough and expensive logistically, and capacity is tight. As the festival has grown, we have had days that have felt very full. making it hard to increase capacity looking forward … The park refurbishments and the planting of a bunch of new trees — which look very nice and are a great addition — made it extremely hard on our set-up and (audience) sightlines to some stages and also took away a decent swath of flat ground we needed for sponsor activations.
“So, with this being a renewal year of the multi-year contract, it was the time to look at all opportunities for what can be best for the future growth of the festival.”
The move from spring to fall would be a full-circle pivot for Wonderfront, whose website currently makes no reference to a 2026 iteration of the festival.
Its 2019 and 2022 editions took place in late fall — a move designed to boost tourism and staycations at downtown hotels on what is typically a fallow November weekend. Cool weather prompted the event’s shift to May in 2024 and 2025. But unseasonable rains and low temperatures put a damper on attendance at last year’s festival.