{"id":150258,"date":"2026-03-27T18:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/150258\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T18:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:50:11","slug":"scranton-residents-react-to-fifa-world-cup-fan-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/150258\/","title":{"rendered":"Scranton residents react to FIFA World Cup fan zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fourth of July was already something many in the Electric City were looking forward to this year. Especially since it’s the country’s 250th anniversary. But after an announcement from the governor<\/a> in Reading on Thursday, this Independence Day is shaping up to be one of the biggest in Scranton’s history.<\/p>\n

“Visit PA will host these unbelievable fan zones in Scranton, in Pittsburgh, and of course, right here in Reading, Pennsylvania,” said Governor Josh Shapiro.<\/p>\n

The day after the annual Scrantastic Spectacular, the city will be the host of one of three official fan zones in the entire state for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Folks in the area will be able to watch knockout games and the cup finals right on Courthouse Square.<\/p>\n

“One of the biggest staging companies in the world is going to be coming up here and doing staging, we’re going to have this huge, massive screen,” said Thom Welby, Lackawanna County Commissioner. “And on other parts of the square we’re going to have more smaller screens, large, but smaller than the primary one.”<\/p>\n

Organizers are also planning to have live activities, games, and vendors to accommodate the potential thousands of people that are expected to come. People who some businesses are hoping to turn into customers.<\/p>\n

“It’s exciting man, it’s cool to see a bunch of people coming into town for the game, the World Cup’s always a good time, and it’s a good time to hang out, have a couple of drinks, and get some good food.”<\/p>\n

“I think it’s going to impact our business in a great way, it will get people in, try our different beers, have some good food, and watch the game,” said Jordan Kucharski, Mutant Brewing bartender.<\/p>\n

“We’ll be ready for it; I was talking to the staff today, I was like ‘No one can take any vacations during this week,’ so we have all hands on deck,” said Tyler Connor, DaVinci’s Pizza Owner.<\/p>\n

Folks can watch knockout games on the square on July 4th, 5th, and 6th, and you’ll also be able to watch the finals on the 18th and 19th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fourth of July was already something many in the Electric City were looking forward to this year.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179,68548,68547,29483],"class_list":["post-150258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-staging-companies","tag-the-fourth-of-july","tag-thom-welby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}