Thousands of fans pack Fair Park as World Cup begins — PHOTOS
The first match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup also kicked off the FIFA Fan Festival at Fair Park in Dallas.
Thousands of fans showed up to watch Mexico defeat South Africa 2-0 to open the tournament.
“It’s nice to have a centralized place for fans to come together to watch games,” said Humberto Munoz, a Dallas native who was cheering for Mexico. “We checked out the pavilion viewing area, and it’s nice to have a space that can hold up to 35,000 fans.”
Many Mexico fans were attendance, including Mario Varela, a fan from Garland.
“I came because some friends invited me, and I thought it would be a good spot to watch,” he said. “I’ve really just enjoyed being able to watch the game here. It’s been nice to come just to enjoy the game and zone out.”
Fair Park features two viewing areas, with one at the pavilion and another screen set up at the north entrance. The fan fest also had many areas for fans to play soccer and grab merchandise or food and drinks. Sponsoring companies had fan areas with the game on or activities for fans to participate in.
The fan fest also had a separate soccer area that had spots for fans to play games, like accuracy challenges, power shot challenges and seated soccer games.
“The power strike was fun,” Varela said. “I don’t think it’s fully accurate, so I’m going to try again to beat my score.”
The fan fest will continue for all World Cup matches, including the first match for the U.S. against Paraguay at 8 p.m. Friday. Fans can get a ticket for free on the fan fest’s website.
This story was originally published June 11, 2026 at 8:40 PM.
