Seattle City Council announces 10 year contract for Bumbershoot

After a three year hiatus, Seattle's Bumbershoot is back and the festival is all set to kick off on its traditional slot during Labor Day weekend 2023.

This week, the Seattle City Council announced that this year's festival organizers, local nonprofit New Rising Sun, won a bid with the city to host Bumbershoot for the next 10 years, with a back-end option to host for five additional years.

Councilmember Andrew Lewis said the bid from New Rising Sun stood out because of the group's plans to grow the festival.

“That was really a big part of the vision in the bid from New Rising Sun,” Lewis said. “Why does Bumbershoot only have to be on that three day weekend? Why can't we have pop ups around the year under the Bumbershoot brand? And do they always have to happen at the Seattle Center?”

New Rising Sun plans to expand Bumbershoot programming to happen year-round with potential popups in vacant office space downtown that can be converted into venues and event spaces.

Joe Paganelli, CEO of New Rising Sun, said there are many possibilities to explore with expansion of the Bumbershoot brand. With the essential characteristics of the festival in mind, which include music, comedy, family entertainment, and visual art, New Rising Sun aims to get to work on creating new programs once this summer's festival is complete.

“Right now, we're eight weeks out from the core festival,” Paganelli said. “We are highly focused on the mission of presenting a safe, inclusive, affordable, and accessible Bumbershoot. If we don't get that right, then it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to be trying to focus elsewhere.”

This year, the new-look festival will roll out much more than music, with an increased focus on the arts. This includes nail arts, tattoos, culinary arts, wrestling, skating, fashion, and more.

In addition to the inclusion of different art forms, New Rising Sun has also introduced educational programs for youth that will happen throughout the year with cohorts completing training sessions during the core festival.

“We like to say that we are wrapping everything around the Workforce Development Program,” Paganelli said. “We want to make an impact and remove barriers and create opportunity. It involves shadow-shifts, workshops, guest speakers, hands on training, mentorship.”

This new program, for young people ages 17-25, is aimed at using working experience to train the next generation of workers in the creative economy. The current cohort will finish their six-month session on Labor Day weekend, and Paganelli hopes to expand this program in the future.

The new-look Bumbershoot festival will be at the Seattle Center September 2-3. With the signing of this new bid, the festival returns to its annual status for at least the next 10 years.