Hundreds of thousands will gather in this iconic Kansas City park to celebrate World Cup
The south lawn of the National World War I Museum and Memorial will be the center of fan activity when Kansas City hosts soccer’s World Cup in 2026.
Mayor Quinton Lucas made the announcement of the location for Kansas City’s FIFA Fan Festival Wednesday outside the museum in front of a makeshift soccer field where members of the East High School Bears passed and dribbled soccer balls before the private event staged for dignitaries and the news media.
The team, made up largely of immigrants and refugees from around the world, won the Missouri Class 3 boys soccer championship last year and, according to Lucas, those young players were symbols of what the World Cup is all about.
“In many ways, East High School recognizes what we look to recognize each day in Kansas City and certainly with this World Cup, which is people brought together from around the world, different cultures and beyond,” he said.
Like those young soccer players, the World Cup will attract visitors from around the globe two summers from now when six cup matches are played at Arrowhead Stadium.
Hundreds of thousands will have tickets to the games, but many more people will come for the excitement and events during those several weeks that June and July.
Those with and without tickets will crowd into the city’s Fan Festival, an event all 16 cities in this North American World Cup are required by FIFA (the world soccer federation) to put on as part of their role as a chosen host city.
It will be the central gathering place, although not the only one in the region, where fans can enter free and watch other World Cup matches on big screens, eat greasy food, hear concerts and buy souvenirs.
Pam Kramer, the CEO of the local organizing committee, KC2026, said it will also be a key location where the world’s media will point their cameras during the World Cup.
“Fan Fest is really an opportunity to show not only the hundreds of thousands of who will be in our region during the World Cup, but millions, hundreds of millions of fans around the world who we are, who our people are, and what we represent,” she said at Wednesday’s event.
Lucas said the event’s secure perimeter will stretch south from the museum and memorial and not include the North Lawn.
“We have worked hard to make sure that folks can be open nearby, Pershing stays open. Union Station does. We’ll continue to have conversations about security and ingress and egress,” he said.
“I give Pam and her team great credit. They worked closely with the National World War I Museum to make sure they could even still have events during the summer of 2026. So we think that this is an outstanding collaboration, and it’s one that allows people to live a normal life in Kansas City while having this once in a lifetime global event.”
He gave no details on security precautions, but said some of that information will be made public later. The Fan Festival will not be an open-access event, like the Super Bowl celebration outside Union Station in February, which was marred by gunfire that killed one woman and injured several others.
Like the NFL Draft, the World Cup will have many if not all of the same strict security procedures as other National Special Security Events, which are coordinated by federal law enforcement agencies.
“In some ways, if you were here for some of the NFL Draft, where the family festival area was, it will look a lot more like that,” Lucas said.
Visitors went through metal detectors, and carry-in items were restricted.
Fan Fest is the most expensive single line item on the World Cup committee’s budget: $22 million out of the overall $122 million total of the draft budget that KC2026 provided the Kansas City Council in April.
As of then, the committee anticipated that $450,000 would be spent in 2024 on the Fan Festival with the rest being spent in 2025 and 2026.
That single-page budget document did not break down the source of funding for the Fan Fest specifically. But for Kansas City’s overall participation in the World Cup, KC2026 anticipates that 40% will come from private contributions and advertising revenue. The rest – about $68 million – is coming from tax dollars provided by the states of Kansas and Missouri, Kansas City and other local governments.
That does not include the $42.5 million that the state of Missouri is spending to make modifications to the seating at Arrowhead so that the field conforms with FIFA soccer dimensions.
Memorial Hill Park was chosen as the Fan Fest location in part because it is adjacent to the KC Streetcar line and regular bus routes. Highway access is also good.
For more than a century, the area around the National WWI Museum and Memorial has been where the community gathers for big events.
The museum grounds have hosted rock concerts, celebrations and major events like the NFL Draft in 2023. People gather to watch the fireworks on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. And over the past decade, hundreds of thousands have looked on from the museum and memorial’s North Lawn as the Chiefs celebrated three Super Bowl wins and the Royals their 2015 World Series victory.
The tradition dates back to 1921, when more than 100,000 people – some crowd estimates say it was double that – gathered to dedicate the site for the construction of the memorial tower and surrounding monuments honoring the soldiers who fought and died in WWI.
Five years later, on Nov. 11, 1926, another giant crowd swarmed the area again, on what was then known as Armistice Day, to hear President Calvin Coolidge and other dignitaries celebrate the completion of the 217-foot-tall tower and the “Flame of Inspiration” at its top.
Matthew Naylor, the museum’s CEO, noted at Wednesday’s event that the World Cup will occur in the memorial’s centennial year and that the location of the Fan Festival is fitting.
Coolidge gave his speech from the same location where he, Lucas and Kramer made their remarks, Naylor said.
“He stood here with 150,000 people down this mall, talking to people about this memorial being a symbol of peace.
“And I’m proud that a century later, that we would gather here, this international community in the spirit of unity through this international athletic competition.”
This story was originally published August 14, 2024 at 6:49 PM.
