It isn’t even winter yet, but why not start planning your summer now?

Last summer, the Waterfront Blues Festival , Portland’s annual Fourth of July party featuring music, food and fireworks downtown, shrank from four days and four stages to two days and two stages.

Apparently, the contraction worked.

“If you were downtown at the Blues Fest this past summer, you really felt why this festival is so important to our city,” said Christina Fuller, festival director, in a press release.

According to the release, 17,000 people attended the festival in 2025.

So now, next summer, the festival will add back one each of those days and stages.

The festival announced on Wednesday that in 2026, the festival will start on Thursday, July 2 and end on Saturday, July 4.

And instead of two stages, th

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