Goldenvoice brings back Portola Week with more than 15 shows across the city from September 24 to 27, anchored by a six-hour DESPACIO birthday session at Pier 80 on the Friday.
Written by Eric B. Thornton
The best argument for a festival is usually what happens around it. Ask anyone who has done a Portola weekend properly: the two days at Pier 80 are the anchor, but the city is the reason you book the extra night. San Francisco still has the room for it, a club map that runs from the Regency Ballroom’s balcony down through Public Works, Monarch, the Great American Music Hall, 1015, the Great Northern, the Midway and 888 Garage, and for one week in September Goldenvoice fills nearly all of it.
Portola Week is back for the festival’s fifth year, with more than 15 shows across the city from Thursday, September 24 through Sunday, September 27, several of them billed as DJ sets rather than live shows. Soulwax, Overmono, Fatboy Slim, 2manydjs, SG Lewis, Chloé Caillet, horsegiirL, VTSS, Channel Tres, Groove Armada, Ben UFO, Parcels, Two Shell and Fcukers are all playing rooms a fraction the size of the pier, with more still to be announced.
The headline of the week is a birthday party, and it is the hardest ticket of all of them. To mark five years, Portola’s 5th Birthday DESPACIO Extravaganza opens Pier 80 a night early on Friday, September 25, for a six-hour session running 5 to 11 p.m. before the system returns to its usual place inside the festival. The catch is who gets in: the night is exclusive to 2026 passholders who have been to every single Portola since the inaugural 2022 edition, verified through the email tied to their AXS account.
Five years of receipts, four tickets maximum. DESPACIO, for the uninitiated, is the custom system built by LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, David and Stephen Dewaele of Soulwax and 2manydjs, and sound engineer John Klett: seven McIntosh-powered stacks, strictly vinyl, and the three of them tucked out of sight while they play, so nobody in the room is looking at a booth.
Thursday opens quietly with Soulwax at the Regency and Black Rave Culture at Club Six. Friday spreads out fast: Channel Tres, JYOTY and Gelli Haha at the Regency, Six Sex at Great American Music Hall, 2manydjs at 1015, Neil Frances at 888 Garage. Saturday runs Fcukers (DJ set) and Chloé Caillet at Public Works, Groove Armada at the Great Northern, Parcels at the Regency and Max Styler at Audio.
Sunday is where the week earns its keep. Overmono’s DJ set and Ben UFO take Public Works, horsegiirL, VTSS and Two Shell land at the Midway, SG Lewis plays the Great Northern, AZZECCA takes Audio, and Fatboy Slim closes out 888 Garage, which is a genuinely funny sentence to write about a man who has headlined beaches for a quarter million people.
All of it wraps around the festival itself on Saturday, September 26 and Sunday, September 27 at Pier 80, where Robyn, DOG BLOOD, Swedish House Mafia, Zara Larsson, Tiësto, Four Tet, Tove Lo and Soulwax headline. We already ran down the eight artists you don’t want to miss on the pier. Consider this the rest of the itinerary.
Five years in, Portola has stopped being a two-day event and started being a week the whole city clears its calendar for. Pace yourself. See you on the pier.
Portola Week — September 24-27, 2026, across San Francisco. Portola Music Festival — September 26 + 27 at Pier 80. Tickets and the full schedule at portolamusicfestival.com/portola-week.
CONNECT WITH PORTOLA
Website | Portola Week Tickets | Goldenvoice
