For more than a month, Fair Park in South Dallas will welcome thousands of soccer fans for the official FIFA Fan Festival Dallas.
On Monday, the North Texas FWC Organizing Committee revealed plans for Dallas’ fan festival, a daily party where soccer fans can watch 2026 World Cup games, see concerts and more, all for free.
“We realize that there are people who may not be able to attend a World Cup match here, or one of the 104 matches, but really the FIFA Fan Festival is the heartbeat, where the energy comes,” said organizing committee president Monica Paul at a news conference Monday. “So the fan festival is an opportunity for everybody to really participate in the World Cup.”
It will run for 34 days, from June 11 to July 19, with five off days that coincide with the rest days when no matches are played. The festival will open an hour before the first match of the day and close an hour after the last one has ended, with the exception of matches beginning after 10 p.m. Dallas time, which will not be shown.
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North Texas FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee President Monica Paul answers questions after a news conference about the FIFA Fan Festival Dallas at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on March 9, 2026. The event was held by the North Texas FWC Organizing Committee.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
The Dos Equis Pavilion, temporarily renamed simply The Pavilion at Fair Park to comply with FIFA sponsorship rules, will be the main venue, supporting up to 20,000 guests. Additional space in Lots 9 and 10 will hold another 15,000 guests. In total, the fan festival will take up about 1 million square feet of space in Fair Park.
Dallas’ festival is being produced by Austin-based C3 Presents, the event production company behind Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza, among others.
Paul said that the fan festival will feature three or four concerts at The Pavilion, to be announced around May, alongside activations from the festival’s nine local commercial partners, including UT Southwestern Medical Center, Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages, Choctaw Casinos and others. Attendees of the festival can also expect a range of inclusive food and drink options, cultural performances, a playground area and more activities.
Entrance to the festival will be free, though a QR code will be required to enter, with premium access tickets to be announced later.
The Cotton Bowl at Fair Park will also be a training site for teams playing at AT&T Stadium, but Paul said that transportation planning for Fair Park is designed to accommodate teams coming and going to train and the festival without interfering with each other.
Dallas fan festival full steam ahead, other cities pull back
FIFA requires all 16 host cities for this year’s World Cup to hold a fan festival. However, some have scaled back their plans, with most citing funding concerns.
Fan festivals can demand up to $1 million a day from host cities in security costs alone, according to a Newsweek report, while FIFA gets to keep primary revenue streams like ticket sales and global sponsorships. At the same time, federal dollars earmarked for World Cup security, paid out as reimbursements, are tied up as collateral in the congressional fight over Department of Homeland Security funding.
Two weeks ago, Miami warned it may have to cancel its fan festival, and the original plan for the New York/New Jersey festival, 39 days centralized at Liberty State Park, was scrapped in favor of multiple smaller fan zones and community-based events.
Boston, meanwhile, put off announcing its plans until last month, as delays in federal and state funding caused organizing chaos for both the seven matches at Gillette Stadium and the festival. Boston City Hall will now host an abbreviated “up to 16″-day Fan Festival, while Foxborough, Mass., officials are still threatening to withhold entertainment licenses for matches, unless someone besides Foxborough taxpayers fronts an estimated $7.8 million in security costs.
Dallas, though, joins other hosts like Houston and Philadelphia in throwing an all-out fan festival. Amy Hopfinger, FIFA chief business and strategy officer for the World Cup, noted that the existing infrastructure of Fair Park lends itself to hosting a large festival.
FIFA Fan Festival Dallas renderings were on display during a news conference at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on March 9, 2026. The event was held by the North Texas FWC Organizing Committee.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
In 2025, the State Fair of Texas drew more than 2 million visitors over 24 days, including nearly 200,000 visitors on the day of the Red River Rivalry.
Regarding funding, Paul cited the nine host city sponsors and Texas’ Event Trust Fund, a suite of programs through the governor’s office.
“We are intending to do a traditional fan festival, like we have seen in Russia and Qatar,” said Paul. “The energy, the opportunity that it provides for our city and region is very important to us, and we want to be able to stand by our commitment to FIFA from the very beginning, that we’ve been working on over four-plus years.”
Stakeholders address security concerns, as ICE, Iran fears take shape
In Monday’s news conference, stakeholders addressed several concerns related to the World Cup and the fan festival, with security at the forefront.
Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Moreno said conversations about federal and state funding were happening daily, but he wasn’t concerned about security funding, calling local law enforcement “equipped and ready” for any situation related to the festival.
Meanwhile, City Council member Adam Bazaldua, who represents Fair Park, spoke to fears of potential U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence, given the agency’s recent history of strict enforcement and detention of U.S. citizens, tourist visa holders, and others legally present.
Though he said he couldn’t speak for the federal government on whether ICE would be present at the festival, he said, “I think [the local government has] made it very clear on what they’re going to get from us as far as collaboration.” In October, city officials and the Dallas Police Department refused $25 million from the federal government in exchange for help with immigration enforcement.
“The last thing that we need to do is be posing even more of a threat or concern for anyone who’s traveling to our country,” Bazaldua said.
While several were asked about potential turmoil from the U.S.’s newly launched war in Iran, none of the stakeholders addressed the questions directly. Instead, they largely gave blanket endorsements of local security, including Dallas’ police and fire departments, and pointed to the World Cup’s ability to bring people together.
“Certain decisions are definitely at the federal level,” Paul said. “We’re just focused right here on how we can be the most successful and prepared here in the North Texas region.”
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The comments came during a media tour of the International Broadcast Center in Dallas’ Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center.
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