Just a few more opportunities remain to experience Houston’s FIFA World Cup events — and while the United States was eliminated last week, the competition among the remaining teams is keeping die-hard fans glued to their TVs and creating a new generation of soccer supporters.
No more matches are scheduled at Reliant Stadium, but here’s what remains before the free FIFA Fan Festival in East Downtown shuts down on Sunday, July 19.
- Fan Festival hours are 12:30 to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, July 14, with a semifinal match featuring France vs. Spain at 2 p.m. displayed on the big screens. Open play for youth is from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at Aramco Arena.
- Fan Festival hours are 12:30 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, July 15, with a semifinal match featuring England vs. Argentina at 2 p.m. displayed on the big screens. Open play for youth is from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at Aramco Arena. Reigning champions Argentina won the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar.
- Fan Fest is closed on Thursday, July 16, and Friday, July 17, as there are no matches on these dates.
- Fan Festival hours are 2:30 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 18, with a semifinal match at 4 p.m. displayed on the big screens. The theme is Fan Appreciation Day, and a meet and greet with the FIFA World Cup mascots is set for 2:30 to 6 p.m. at Houston Hall. The teams competing on Saturday have not been determined.
- Closing ceremonies and the final match will be on Sunday, July 19. Fan Fest hours are from 12:30 to 4 p.m. with the final match at 2 p.m. The teams competing on Sunday have not been determined.
Concerns about traffic and weather remained steady throughout the duration of Houston’s hosting duties, but other than a few bad weather days, decreased access to some EaDo businesses and long lines at METRO stations on at least one occasion, Houston’s hosting assignment nears completion with few complaints.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire said on the June 26 episode of his 901 Bagby Street: Inside the Mayor’s Office podcast that everyone needs to go to Fan Fest and emphasized the “can-do” attitude of thousands of people involved in ensuring Houston’s World Cup events were successful.
“I’ve become a soccer fan,” Whitmire said. “I did not fully appreciate it until [I saw] the passion of our guests from around the world and Houstonians coming together. Fan Fest is just spectacular. We took old parking lots and old warehouses and put astroturf on the pavement and air conditioning in the warehouses. We have food vendors and large-screen TVs. I wish we didn’t have to end it, quite frankly.”
Commuter traffic wasn’t heavily impacted because most of the seven matches played at Houston Stadium were at noon.
“We have some traffic challenges but they’re not brought about by FIFA,” Whitmire said. “In fact, a large FIFA World Cup game is about like a rodeo. Certainly it’s like a Super Bowl. We’ve handled it before. Having grown up in Houston and having gone to Final Fours, the Super Bowl, the rodeo, you name it, they’re all spectacular, but I think Fan Fest and the World Cup gets No. 1 for the unity that it brings to our city. It’s safe and well-organized. People from around the world were saying what a friendly city we have.”
The Houston Airport System reported that 4.5 million passengers passed through George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport from June 12 to July 6. More than 68,000 people attended each of the local matches, and attendance at Fan Fest averaged about 16,431 visitors per day, occasionally having to move overflow crowds into Shell Energy Stadium.
A spokesperson with the Houston Airport System said more than 439,000 passengers at IAH and HOU during the peak travel period were international guests, an increase of 2 percent over the same time frame in 2025.
METRO officials also saw a spike in ridership, prompting the transit agency to reduce train frequency from every six minutes to every three minutes, deploy cooling buses, adjust how trains are staged and loaded following events and create a cool waiting area at NRG Center for fans exiting the stadium.
Although METRO hasn’t released comprehensive total figures, a spokesperson said more than 69,000 riders used METRO on the Netherlands-Sweden match day, June 20. METRO closed out its World Cup service on July 10 and resumed its regular schedule.
In Whitmire’s podcast interview, he acknowledged that visitors dealt with some inclement weather, from street flooding to a triple-digit heat index on some days.
“They did get exposed to Houston’s weather,” he said. “The first week, we had rain and more rain and some street flooding, which is always going to be the case when we get four to six inches in an hour, but it runs off and creates a lot of humidity. It is hot in Houston and we’re having an unusually hot summer.”
This week’s forecast calls for daily showers and thunderstorms all week with high temperatures in the mid-90s.
