PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – The Portland Rose Festival opened with a bang during its fireworks show Friday and the fun continued into the weekend as crowds flocked to the CityFair event for carnival rides, games, music and beer.
Four days after the festivities began, Rose Festival organizers say many more people are participating in the fun this year than in 2022.
“Revenue for the entire 2022 Festival was down due to the weather related issues, so the Rose Festival is hoping this year will be a positive impact on our comeback story,” Rich Jarvis, public relations manager for the Portland Rose Festival Foundation, wrote in an email.
The Rose Festival has been working to come back from the COVID-19 pandemic after it canceled events in 2020 and 2021.
The event is Portland’s first major festival; it began in 1907 and since then, it’s grown. It now lasts for more than three weeks with events like races, a carnival and parades.
Jarvis said the Rose Festival cannot release specific numbers, but said that during the opening weekend, ticket redemptions to the CityFair showed there were people there from 41 different states and three countries: Canada, China and Ireland. There were also people there from the territories of Puerto Rico and Guam.
Revenue for the four days exceeded 2022’s opening weekend, Jarvis said, and the festival hopes the trend continues for the next two weeks.
Extended forecasts currently show sunny and dry weather for the foreseeable future.
