About The Event

Wristbands grant access to the live music venues and performance areas throughout the festival. In addition, they offer special deals, discounts, or perks at participating businesses across the neighborhood.

The goal is to give festival-goers a reason to explore Pioneer Square and visit businesses they might not otherwise discover. Wristbands help create a shared experience and sense of discovery that benefits everyone involved—musicians, vendors, and brick-and-mortar businesses alike.

Great question — and one we hear often!

Pioneer Square Fest began as a grassroots experiment during in 2022, called the Pioneer Square Summer Market and Music Festival. That first year, we had just 30 vendors and 12 bands, all organized with minimal resources and no formal street closures. In 2023, we expanded to include more vendors and live music in neighborhood venues, but still operated entirely within existing spaces — Occidental square park and pop-ups in storefronts.

2025 marks the first year we’ve officially partnered with City of Seattle Special Events Office to close streets in the style of the U District Street Fair — a milestone that brings much more visibility and coordination. This scale of festival hasn’t happened in Pioneer Square for decades, so while our team has been working on it for years, the larger public footprint and city-wide awareness are brand new.

We’re proud of how far we’ve come, and we’re incredibly excited to share it more broadly with the neighborhood and city this year. If this is your first time hearing about us — welcome! We have a terribly limited advertising budget so there’s never been a better time to get involved and help spread the word.

Planning a large-scale event in Pioneer Square—one that closes streets, activates parks, and involves dozens of small businesses—requires coordination across multiple city departments. We submitted our first permit request back in January 2025, but because events of this size haven’t been done here in a long time, the proposal needed additional evaluation. Each department (transportation, police, fire, parks, etc.) has its own review window, and many don’t start formal reviews until 30–90 days before an event. While we’ve been working behind the scenes for months, official approvals were simply not possible until recently.

We’re grateful for the patience and support of the City of Seattle’s Special Events Office in helping navigate this process. With the groundwork now in place, we’re confident future events will have more lead time and certainty. This festival was built on hope, collaboration, and a shared belief that a neighborhood celebration like this was worth the effort.

Most importantly, Pioneer Square Fest is designed to celebrate this neighborhood—its businesses, its artists, and its public spaces. We hope everyone who lives, works, or loves this place uses the event as an excuse to invite friends, family, and colleagues to explore everything Pioneer Square has to offer.

We understand that closing streets in a busy neighborhood like Pioneer Square can raise concerns about congestion. That’s why Pioneer Square Fest is carefully designed to minimize disruption while maximizing community benefit.

The festival is divided into four distinct zones, each with its own load-in and load-out schedule. This approach helps manage traffic flow and reduces the strain on any one area of the neighborhood at a time. Emergency access routes are maintained throughout the event, and street closures are clearly marked and coordinated with the City of Seattle to avoid overlapping with major events or construction.

Additionally, we’re taking steps to reduce the number of cars coming into the neighborhood altogether:

YYes — absolutely! Pioneer Square Fest is all about celebrating our historic, walkable neighborhood. It’s also one of the most transit-accessible areas in Seattle, served by:

• Link Light Rail
• Multiple Metro bus routes
• First Hill Streetcar
• The free Waterfront Shuttle

We’re even offering ORCA card promotions available through our wristband checkout page.

If you’ve never taken the light rail to Pioneer Square before, now’s the perfect excuse. We believe great festivals bring people together — not just on the streets, but on the way there, too.