Friday February 20th, 2026 was the first day of this year’s Innings Festival here in Tempe. Arizona. It was an unusual day as the temperature only got to 62 degrees. So, most people had to wear long sleeve shirts during the day but as the sun set, they had to put on jackets.
Again, this year the festival was setup with 2 musical stages, Right Field Stage and Home Plate Stage. Home Plate was where the headline band performs at the end of the day. On this day that was Mumford & Sons. During the day, the performing bands would switch between the 2 stages with the first band staring at Right Field Stage.
The viewing area was divided into 3 sections, General Admission, VIP and Platinum. The Platinum had the best locations right up front on 1 side of the stage. They also got additional perks like golf cart transportation between stage areas. The VIP area at right field got a small section up front on the Right Field Stage area and the bleachers at Home Plate. The VIP and Platinum people also got private areas where they could get their food and drink, restrooms and picnic tables and seating. General Admission (GA) got nothing and had to sit on the ground. GA tickets were the cheapest, then VIP and finally Platinum. Personally, if you could swing it, I would get at least the VIP tickets.
In years past, a lot of fans in the GA section would “Park” themselves at one of the stages so they could get the best possible location for their favorite band. But for some reason, on Friday and Sunday, a lot of the GA people migrated between the 2 stages. It was interesting to see the crowd move as a mass between the stages.
On Friday the gates opened at 12PM (noon) with the first band, Fat Evil Children performing at the Right Field Stage at 12:10. The first few bands only got 30 minutes each. As the day went on the bands got 45 minutes, then 1 hour and finally the headliner at Home Plate, Mumford & Sons started at 9 PM and played for 90 minutes.
No one band stood out to me on Friday. They were all good. The nice things about festivals are you get to see a number of different bands and because they only get a short period of time to perform, they usually perform their best stuff.
Saturday February 21st was the second day of the festival. On this day, the temperature was better in that it got to the low 70s during the day and after the sun set, you only needed a long sleeve shirt or light jacket.
The same setup of stages and performances occurred all weekend. The gate opened at 12 PM, the first band performed at Right Field at 12:10 and the headliner ended the night at Home Plate at 9 PM. They started with The Backfires and ended the night with Twenty One Pilots. Saturday was more typical of past years. A lot of people parked themselves at home plate for the entire day just to have great location to see Twenty One Pilots.
On Saturday, there was one band that I thought stood out the most the entire weekend, Cage The Elephant. They had the most dynamic front person that at times reminded me of Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. They also had a very impressive light and pyrotechnics display.
As a new feature this year, they added a 3rd day to the Innings Festival. Sunday, I believe was the best overall band line-up day. If you wanted Rock & Roll music they had Bowling For Soup, Switchfoot and Sublime. If you wanted Hip-Hop and Rap, then Big Boi and Public Enemy was available. They topped the night off with Blink-182. I am not a huge Hip-Hop/Rap fan, but I was very impressed by Public Enemy. They even had me bouncing and dancing to their music.
It was nice to see that they had a sign language provider signing for the ADA area on the side of the stage.
Overall, it was a fun 3-day festival. A lot of great music. And the weather was good overall, sunny without any rain. I will tell you that if you come to next year’s Innings Festival be prepared to walk a lot. I did 7.5 miles on Friday, 6.5 miles on Saturday and Sunday.
If you attend next weekend’s Extra Innings Festival (Friday & Saturday February 27th & 28th) you better be prepared for hotter temperatures. They are forecasting 94 degrees during the day. Please make sure you drink plenty of water. Also remember that the food and drink venders are using a Cashless system again this year.
