A fifth edition on a working pier
Goldenvoice ran the fifth Portola Music Festival on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September 2026 at Pier 80. The festival's past-lineups page lists 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026.
The venue is a working cargo terminal. The Port of San Francisco's Waterfront Resilience Program describes Pier 80 as a 60-acre working cargo pier with two warehouses, four deep water berths, four cranes used to offload materials from ships, and a railroad connection. The same document records the terminal as a Port Priority Use area in the region's Seaport Plan and as a FEMA staging area.
Pasha Automotive Services signed a 15-year operating agreement with the Port in 2016. The resilience document gives the export volume as approximately 100,000 automobiles a year and records that the terminal also handles occasional project cargo. The Port's cargo page lists Pier 80 as a break-bulk terminal.
Four stages across two environments
The festival's FAQ puts the event indoors and outdoors at Pier 80. Its question on the site reads: the parking lot or inside the warehouse. The stage-lineups page names four stages: Warehouse, Crane Stage, Ship Tent and Pier Stage. That page carries a Saturday and a Sunday switch and puts the running order in the Portola app.
The terminal's covered storage gives the event its indoor floor. Port material gives Shed A 224,000 square feet and Shed D 170,000 square feet, a sum of 394,000 square feet. The resilience document gives the terminal's covered storage as approximately 400,000 square feet.
The published operating envelope
Doors opened at 1 pm PT on both days. Curfew fell at 11 pm PT. The two days carried twenty programmed hours between them.
The event was 21-plus with a physical government-issued photo ID at entry. Re-entry was not permitted. The event was cashless and ran rain or shine. The FAQ notes that some areas carry limited capacities and that the lineup is subject to change.
Two doors and a closed car park
The main entrance sat at 900 Marin St. The box office sat near it, open 11 am to 9 pm on Saturday and Sunday. The 5th Birthday Despacio Extravaganza ran a second door at 401 Cesar Chavez St, which the organiser marks as not the main festival entrance. Doors opened at 5 pm and the party ended at 11 pm. That second event ran no BART shuttle and no designated rideshare zone.
Festival parking was not available at Pier 80. The plan page states that in capitals and asks attendees not to drive. The general rideshare zone sits at Pier 70. A free shuttle looped between the pier and 24th St Mission BART from 12:30 pm to 11:30 pm.
Eight tiers, every one sold out
Eight pass tiers appeared on the pass page, and each one read Sold Out. Two-day GA started at $399.95. Saturday GA started at $269.95 and Sunday GA at $299.50. Two-day VIP started at $779.50, and each single-day VIP tier at $459.95. The two four-packs carried per-pass prices of $399.95 for GA and $699.95 for VIP, and the page marks both as price shown times four.
The order terms set upfront pricing with no added fees, an eight-pass limit per household, all sales final with no refunds, cancellations or exchanges, and no difference in tiers other than price. A $2 Sustainability Fee is included in every pass.
The partner property
W San Francisco at 181 3rd Street held the Official Hotel Partner position and sold the Portola Festival Rooms Package. The package includes VIP access to Brunch, Bites and Beats presented by Ninja Tune with Touching Ice, nimino and Chloé Caillet, hosted cocktails by NEFT Vodka, local experiences from San Franpsycho, a curated welcome gift, optional round-trip transportation to Pier 80, and a 2 pm late checkout. The package excludes festival passes, and the page publishes no room rate. A credit card reserves the room, and cancellation is free before 11:59 pm local hotel time on 22 September 2026.
Temporary capacity, as published
The two-day build occupied a working cargo terminal whose permanent structures are the two warehouses and the berths. The organiser published four stage names and no stage capacity. It published an eight-tier sold-out ladder and no attendance figure. It published a 1 pm gate and an 11 pm curfew, and the hourly running order sits in the app.
The Port's own documents give the terminal's size at 60 acres in the resilience document, 69 acres on the cargo page's terminal details, and 70 acres in a 2016 press release on the pier's operations agreement.