Philadelphia built a free, 39-day World Cup festival serving more than 425,000 fans. Take a look inside.
Philadelphia has successfully hosted a 39-day free FIFA FanFest, attracting over 425,000 attendees as part of a long-term strategy to establish the city as a premier event-hosting hub. The festival, which runs alongside other major city events, highlights the logistical planning required for large-scale international sports tourism.
Why it matters
This demonstrates the economic and cultural impact of hosting major sporting events on city branding and urban development.
A crowd watches Portugal play Croatia at Philadelphia's FIFA FanFest. Colleen Stepanian for Business Insider World Cup host city Philadelphia put on the country's only free FanFest. Planning for the 39-day festival began in 2019 to cement the city's status as an event-hosting hub. We attended on July 2 to experience "soccer Coachella" ourselves. For the past month, World Cup hospitality has been the name of the game for the City of Brotherly Love . Philadelphia unveiled its 39-day FIFA FanFest on June 11, and a week later on June 19, it saw a record-breaking 250,000 attendees. As of Wednesday, July 8, more than 425,000 fans have attended the event. The city started planning for the World Cup in 2017, when it began preparing its bid to host, Meg Kane, the CEO of Philadelphia Soccer 2026, told Business Insider.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in