England World Cup fans invited to ‘soccer Coachella’ with free fan fest and cheap beer
The cost of attending the 2026 World Cup is already notorious, but Philadelphia believes it has the solution for budget-conscious England fans heading to the United States.
The city raised $60m in private funding which, along with state and federal contributions, will subsidise what the city is billing as “a soccer Coachella” – the only free fan fest in the US running for the 39-day duration of the tournament.
Philadelphia’s 90-minute train journey to the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where England face Panama in their final group stage fixture later this month, is also a major selling point.
“If anyone is on the fence, it’s going to be easier to get to MetLife Stadium from Philadelphia than from Manhattan,” Anne Ryan of Visit Pennsylvania tells City AM.
“England plays in New Jersey on 27 June but that’s a 90 minute match, right? There’s other matches that fans are going to want to watch, and you’re going to want a place to watch those.
“We can’t control the ticket prices, Fifa controls the ticket prices, but any price that we could control, we worked like hell [to subsidise]. We are the most affordable city for the World Cup without sacrificing the experience.”
Philadelphia has pub culture and is ‘a little unhinged’
The Philadelphia fan fest is promising England supporters beers for $8-$9, around half the price charged at big US stadiums.
They have a more permissive attitude to sporting revelry, says Ryan, due to residents’ own passion for their NFL, MLB and NBA teams, the Eagles, Phillies and 76ers.
In July, visitors can also look forward to extensive celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of American independence and the MLB All Star Game.
“We are a little unhinged when it comes to how much we love our sports teams and sport in general, and the English will have a good time here,” Ryan adds.
“We’re a pub culture. We will give them a run for their money [drinking-wise]. A Philadelphian would love that contest, actually. Any time there’s a championship, the police have to grease the poles [lamp posts, to stop people climbing them]. We like cars on fire when our teams win. We smash windows.
“We don’t want any fans coming here and causing a lot of trouble, but we understand being a bit more unhinged and unapologetic. That’s actually the kind of sports fan we want. We want fans to come and to celebrate in the ways that are authentic to them safely, but we’re here for it – that’s our culture.”
UK flight bookings up 25 per cent for World Cup
Traditional pre-World Cup predictions of economic boosts for the US, Mexican and Canadian cities hosting games have more recently been blighted by pessimism about hotel bookings.
But Ryan says that other metrics – flight bookings from Europe and Airbnb occupancy – reveal surging demand to visit the area during the tournament.
“There’s a false narrative out there that international travellers aren’t coming, and we are not seeing that in our future flight booking data,” she says.
“When we look at May, June, and July, for the UK specifically flights are up by 25 per cent year over year. For France, they’re up by 47 per cent. We’re hosting France. For the Netherlands, they’re up by 49 per cent. We’re hosting [former Dutch colony] Curacao.
“Any country that has a really strong fan base that is known to travel, the flight bookings are up well over the double digits. One of the best games we’re hosting is a Brazil match – those flights are up by 18 per cent and that’s a long flight.
“Airbnb future bookings, the properties that have three bedrooms or more are in the triple digits for growth, and that makes total sense, because we’re hosting Haiti, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire – these are fans that travel in large groups, they need big houses.”
