The Fillmore Jazz Festival, the West Coast’s largest free jazz festival, has been canceled for 2025 due to financial constraints, officials announced Wednesday night.
Tim Omi, president of the sponsoring Fillmore Merchants Association, made the announcement during a neighborhood meeting, according to The New Fillmore.
Organizers cited significant financial losses over the past two years, following the pandemic shutdown, as the primary reason for canceling the event, which had been planned for July 5 and 6. The permit application deadline for this year’s festival would have been Friday.
“We are forced to face the sad reality that we cannot afford to pull off a 12-block street festival in 2025,” Fillmore Merchants Association executive director Patti Mangan said in a statement. “We are in debt to the very support companies we would need this year. It breaks our hearts to share this news but we are determined and focused on the future.”
Mangan said the group hopes to secure enough funding to have jazz acts perform along the street that weekend.
The festival, which has drawn more than 100,000 annually to San Francisco’s historic Fillmore district, launched in 1983 to celebrate the area’s rich jazz heritage.
Last year’s event marked the festival’s 35th anniversary. It featured performances at outdoor stages at California and Eddy streets, with a dozen blocks’ worth of Fillmore Street foot traffic in between, as well as indoor venues at Calvary Presbyterian and Jones Memorial United Methodist churches. The event featured tributes to festival legends Mary Stallings and Sugar Pie DeSanto and performances by vocalists Paula West and Kim Nalley.
The festival costs approximately $400,000 to produce annually. Merchant leaders say they are actively seeking new funding sources to revive the event in 2026.
SFJAZZ interim CEO Susie Medak called the cancelation “a major loss” for the Bay Area.
“Hopefully, the festival will return in future years,” Medak said in a statement Thursday. “The more jazz events in the Bay Area, the better for everyone.”