Up against inevitable competition from the throngs of NFL Draft visitors, Pittsburgh Opera decided to forgo its usual Saturday night opener and instead kick off an upcoming run of “FALSTAFF” on the following Tuesday.
Opera spokesperson Chris Cox said the draft presents an exciting opportunity for the city, though one that rules out a programming sync-up for his institution.
“We made the decision that it was probably better not to try to have our 2,000 patrons compete for parking spots and so forth with 700,000 football fans,” Cox said.
Arts organizations around the city have been forced to weigh the feasibility of attempts to engage NFL Draft visitors. Many plan to skip out on programming, and those pitching to the football crowd generally plan to cater to Pittsburgh’s home fans.
A person walks past the sculptures “Liberty Avenue Musicians” by James Simon on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026 on Liberty Avenue Downtown. (Photo by Alex Jurkuta/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
The high-profile NFL Draft, a three-day bonanza during which teams pick new players, returns to Pittsburgh on Apr. 23 for the first time since 1948. Tourist board VisitPittsburgh expects 500,000 to 700,000 people to visit for the draft. That’s about double the city population. The main event will take place outside the Steelers’ Acrisure Stadium on the North Side with an additional festival across the river at Point State Park.
Cities covet the NFL Draft for the national attention and the economic payoff. Some organizations, primarily within the umbrella of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, hope to engage visitors with Pittsburgh-flavored art, but that’s a difficult proposition for other venues. Assuredly, visitors will bring a lot of business for restaurants, bars and hotels, but getting them to engage with the arts may present a challenge.
Getting a game plan
Last year, Patrick Fisher, CEO of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, wrote a blog post encouraging the city’s art community to use the NFL Draft as an opportunity to showcase the city’s arts scene to the traveling masses. “With 2026 on the horizon,” he wrote then, “now is the time for Pittsburgh’s arts organizations, sports leaders and city officials to come together and make a game plan.”
Fisher, after reaching out to VisitPittsburgh, ended up on a marketing subcommittee for the draft. He spoke with arts organizations in Philadelphia and Detroit, which hosted the draft in 2017 and 2024 respectively, and learned about the potential positive and negative impacts on arts programming. Those conversations suggested to him that arts programming struggled in Philadelphia but did well in Detroit, largely because of the proximity of arts organizations to the campus of the NFL Draft.
“Flow” by digital artist Erwin Redl shines red light through the snow outside of Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Wood Street Galleries, above the Liberty Avenue PRT station on Jan. 25, in Downtown’s Cultural District. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
“[Detroit] was really thinking about, okay, if this is the official footprint of the event, what are we doing just outside of that official footprint? And are there ways we can create creative engagement or arts engagement as people move from outside the formal footprint to inside the formal footprint?” Fisher said.
In terms of proximity and resources, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust stands the best chance to get the arts on the minds of citygoers during the draft. An exhibit at 820 Liberty Gallery running through May 10 about Frank Lloyd Wight’s never-implemented Pittsburgh architectural projects will be joined by an exhibit of sports photography from Michael Zagaris at the trust’s 707 Penn Gallery starting Mar. 27, in a direct attempt at engaging draft visitors Downtown. On the evening of Apr. 25, the last day of the draft, the Byham Theater will host a dance party themed after Taylor Swift, a cultural touchstone for the modern-day NFL.
Additionally, the trust’s long-planned Arts Landing project, an outdoor arts space in the Cultural District, will hold its soft-opening in April to coincide with the draft.
“We don’t have additional plans for the NFL Draft weekend to share quite yet, but we look forward to announcing more details later this month,” Cultural Trust spokesperson Derek Scalzott wrote to Public Source.
“Welcome to Arts Landing”: A video from the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust introducing illustrated plans for Arts Landing in Downtown’s Cultural District, along the Allegheny River. Designed by landscape architecture firm Field Operations, the four-acre destination will be a space to host festivals and performances, exhibit public art, and “provide opportunities for everyday recreation and relaxation,” according to the Cultural Trust.
According to VisitPittsburgh, the Pittsburgh NFL Draft has been designed to acknowledge the cultural identity of the city.
“By weaving the arts into every aspect of the 2026 NFL Draft — from the visual brand to the fan experience — the NFL is affirming that Pittsburgh is as much a cultural capital as it is a sports town,” VisitPittsburgh President and CEO Jerad Bachar said in a written statement provided to Public Source. “This event isn’t just a celebration of football; it’s a global stage that showcases our city’s creativity and proves we can honor our heritage while forging a vibrant, fresh perspective.”
Fisher said it’s wise to “temper expectations.”
“This is not a Pittsburgh event, and this is not an arts event,” Fisher said. “It’s not even a Pittsburgh Steelers event. It is, first and foremost, an NFL event. And I think it is really important to arrange expectations with that in mind.”
The NFL Draft countdown clock on Feb. 2, on the North Shore. (Photo by Alex Jurkuta/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
To be, or not to be?
The Kelly Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty, had already planned on a dance performance from regularly featured artist Jasmine Hearn on the evenings of Apr. 24 and 25. After talks among other arts organizations and NFL Draft veterans among Detroit’s arts organizers, the theater and Hearn decided to keep the date despite it lining up with the draft.
Because of the theater’s location in East Liberty, Co-Executive Director Joseph Hall figured it could avoid the draft hubbub and appeal to its standard customers.
“There will be many Pittsburghers who are here who either want to participate in the NFL Draft or want to participate in their daily lives, their daily activity, so we decided to keep it, knowing that most of the audience will be Pittsburghers who are here and looking to engage in arts,” Hall said.
Other arts organizations that decided to do programming also opted to prioritize their regular audiences. Chatham Baroque in Shadyside will host Tiburtina, a Czech women’s choir, on Apr. 26, a decision “somewhat coincidental,” according to Co-Artistic Director Scott Pauley.
“I’m actually a big fan of the Steelers and I wish them all the best in this year’s draft, but the arts also hold a special place in the city,” Pauley wrote to Public Source. “I don’t think we necessarily need to put music and arts on hold for draft weekend — both can happily exist side by side.”
Because of its closeness to Acrisure Stadium, The Mattress Factory art gallery plans to “actively welcome and promote the museum” to any curious visitors, but doesn’t plan any special programming. It will “prioritize making it easy for anyone in town to step inside, experience the museum, and discover what we do,” Executive Director David Oresick wrote to Public Source.
During early schedule planning, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra didn’t have enough information about the NFL Draft’s footprint, “including security perimeters and access restrictions,” to feel comfortable doing programming, according to spokesperson Keene Carter.
“While we initially considered holding the dates for potential special programming, we ultimately determined that a vacation week was the safest and most audience-friendly option,” Carter wrote to Public Source.
Bottlerocket Social Hall, a bar in addition to a comedy and music venue, took a more middle-of-the-road approach.
“We decided to program it like a normal weekend and find someone tourists may be interested in seeing [Tommy Brennan from SNL] — but I’m not sure anyone knows what to expect,” owner Chris Copen wrote to Public Source. “We’d been told to not expect many folks to leave the ‘NFL Bubble’ Downtown.”
Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company for almost two decades centered its arts programming in a Downtown space near the core of the planned festivities for the NFL Draft. If it remained there, the organization may have tried to get some of the visitors to check out a play. As it is, though, founder Mark Clayton Southers said getting visitors to its new base in the Upper Hill would prove too difficult to schedule its normal programming.
Mark Clayton Southers, founder and producing artistic and technical director at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, sits for a portrait with his dog, Mama Cocoa, at his grade school-turned-theater in the Upper Hill on Feb, 5. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
“Any programming we would have done would have required people to catch an Uber or a Lyft up, you know what I mean?” Southers said. “And, on top of that, for us to really get folks’ attention, we’d have to spend an exorbitant amount of money on advertising.”
The theatre company’s production of “Paradox of Education” will run from Apr. 4 through Apr. 20, the weekend before the NFL Draft. From Apr. 22-26, instead, the company will offer its space for free to 15 artists to display and sell their work, with 10% of the sales going to the theatre.
“Very rarely do artists get a chance to truly shine,” he said.
Future funding
There’s a lot of uncertainty about how the NFL Draft weekend will go for the local arts scene, Fisher said, but one source of universal positivity is the arts funding the weekend’s tax revenue will bring in the future.
“We know that folks who are coming here for the draft are going to be spending money within Allegheny County, right?” Fisher said. “And that will benefit the tax that goes to the [Allegheny Regional Asset District], which then supports their grant making to RAD assets.”
The mural “Pittsburgh Recollections” by Romare Bearden on Feb. 2, in the Gateway Center T Station. (Photo by Alex Jurkuta/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
Past events such as Swift’s Eras Tour stop in 2023 and the Savannah Bananas exhibition baseball team’s 2025 events in Pittsburgh brought in large sums in sales taxes. These funds get distributed to a wide swath of organizations, including those in the arts.
“I am incredibly hopeful,” said RAD Executive Director Richard Hudic. “I am very grateful that the NFL and the Steelers are bringing the NFL Draft here. I think it’s going to represent an amazing opportunity.”
Matt Petras is a visiting lecturer of English for the University of Pittsburgh and a freelance reporter and can be reached at matt456p@gmail.com and on Bluesky @mattapetras.bsky.social.
This story was fact-checked by Jamie Wiggan.
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