More than 575,000 people attended Philly’s World Cup fan festival

Philadelphia transformed Lemon Hill into the longest and one of the largest World Cup watch parties in the country throughout its 39-day stay.

With the World Cup wrapped up, host committees throughout the country are taking stock of how many fans flocked to these festivals. Philly’s Fan Festival saw the second-highest number of attendees, with 575,304 between June 11 and July 19, according to the festival’s organizer, Philadelphia Soccer 2026.

Miami’s host committee was less precise in its count, but said its festival reached more than 600,000 guests.

Each one of the 11 host cities reported fan totals in the hundreds of thousands, but none quite reached the attendance levels for a singular festival like Philly and Miami.

However, despite South Florida’s high total numbers, Philadelphia set the record for most attendees throughout a single day at a U.S. fan festival with 55,000 attendees during the Brazil vs. Haiti group stage match on June 19. While Philadelphia’s fan festival operated for almost twice as long as Miami’s, opening every day of the tournament, Philadelphia worked with half the capacity limit that Miami did, capping crowds at 15,000 people at a time.

New York and New Jersey, home to the largest population among host cities and host of the World Cup final, netted more than one million fans across its decentralized network of official fan zones. The San Francisco Bay Area host committee also chose not to do a singular festival but rather a network of watch parties and events. Across those areas, 900,000 people reportedly visited during World Cup games, according to CBS.

Philly’s million-square-foot watch party, akin to a Fairmount summer barbecue of epic proportions, featured large swaths of open space for fans to lay down blankets and picnic while they watched the game — with the Philadelphia skyline as backdrop — mini soccer pitches to challenge friends to pickup games, and a line of sponsor exhibits, including one outrageously viral Bank of America bracelet-making workshop. Some later resold the bracelets online for upward of $150.

But the main course was the 60-foot wide screen playing almost every 2026 World Cup game to a crowd of thousands. This is where Philadelphians and international tourists could experience the energy of the World Cup outside the pricey stadium seats.

Philly and Miami may win out for the highest attendances, likely due to their singular locations and being open for much longer than other cities’ celebrations, which opted for shorter-lived festival days or decentralized events. Still, most of the U.S. host cities boasted impressive numbers at fan events.

Atlanta, Houston, and Seattle all reported having hosted at least 500,000 fans at their festivals. Kansas City was close behind, reaching 400,000 fans across its 18-day run. Los Angeles brought in 250,000 people to its festival. Boston hosted 155,000. Dallas’s host committee has not released official counts yet.