One Gate, Two Days, No Re-Entry
Portola Music Festival 2026 runs Saturday, September 26 and Sunday, September 27 at Pier 80 in San Francisco. Venue doors open at 1pm PT on both days. The festival takes place indoors and outdoors at the pier.
Admission runs 21 and over on the day you attend. A valid physical government-issued photo ID is required for entry. School IDs, expired IDs, photographs or photocopies of IDs and digital IDs are not accepted. No one under 21 enters, even with a 21-plus companion. The show runs rain or shine.
There is no re-entry, and there is no parking at the festival. The group stays on the pier from the 1pm gate until the close.
Portola Week runs events at venues across San Francisco after each day. A group can hold a block on the pier for two days and still want the same beds for a third night.
Eight Passes To A Household
The order information carries three rules. There is an 8 pass limit per household. All sales are final, with no refunds, cancellations or exchanges. The name on the original order cannot be changed. A 2-Day pass cannot be shared.
An eight-pass ceiling means a group of 24 needs at least three purchasers. Each purchaser runs a separate order, and the name on each order is fixed when the order is placed. The published pass list sells a 2-Day GA 4-Pack, so two four-packs exhaust one household ceiling.
Every pass holder is 21 or over on the day of attendance, so the block carries no minors and no guardianship rule.
Prices are published per pass, and the tiers carry no difference other than price. A 2-Day GA started at $399.95, and a 2-Day GA 4-Pack started at $399.95 per pass. Saturday GA started at $269.95 and Sunday GA at $299.50. A 2-Day VIP started at $779.50, and a 2-Day VIP 4-Pack started at $699.95 per pass. Saturday VIP and Sunday VIP each started at $459.95. A $2 sustainability fee is included with every festival pass. Every 2026 pass type is listed as sold out on the pass page.
The Transfer Window Opens Inside 72 Hours
A pass lives in the Portola app as an AXS Mobile ID. The barcode refreshes on a 60-second cycle, so a screenshot or a printed page does not scan at the gate. Passes loaded into AXS accounts no later than the end of Friday, May 29, and a purchase after that date loads within 10 minutes.
The name on an order stays fixed, and transfer moves a pass to another holder. Where a party arrives separately, individual passes may be transferred through the app or the AXS account, and the recipient needs a Portola FanAccount to accept them.
The organiser states that the transfer option turns on within 72 hours of the festival, and possibly sooner. Seventy-two hours before a Saturday, September 26 opening lands on Wednesday, September 23 at the earliest. That is the first date a coordinator can rely on to fix who holds which pass.
Will call runs from the box office at 900 Marin St, open Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 9pm. Pickup needs a physical government-issued photo ID, the order number and the credit card used for the purchase. No name changes and no alternate will-call pick-ups are allowed. The box office takes card only, and there is no parking at the box office.
Despacio Arrives As One Group
The 5th Birthday Despacio Extravaganza carries its own terms. Despacio passes are non-refundable and non-transferable, and the whole group must arrive together. Despacio is a 21-plus event. Its entrance sits at 401 Cesar Chavez St, which is not the main festival entrance. Doors open at 5pm and the party ends at 11pm.
No transfer and no name change fixes the Despacio attendee list at purchase. A coordinator cannot substitute a name at the desk, and cannot split that sub-group across arrival times.
The organiser publishes the approach. There is no designated rideshare pickup or drop-off for Despacio and no BART shuttle for it. The published route is the T Third Muni Light Rail, or a drop-off at 900 Marin St followed by a walk to the 401 Cesar Chavez St entrance.
What The Block Needs Priced
Ask the hotel to price the Friday and Saturday nights as one block, then price the Thursday as a separate option. Ask for late checkout on the Sunday, because the second day closes after a 1pm gate and an 11pm finish.
Ask how a hold is released when the guest names cannot be fixed until the transfer window opens. Ask for the rooming-list deadline, the name-change fee and the release date.
Ask for the deposit amount and the date it falls due. Ask for the attrition percentage and the penalty formula. Ask for the nightly rate across the three nights, and for the day-use rate on the Saturday.
Ask how far the property sits from Pier 80 and from the 900 Marin St drop-off point, because the venue has no parking and the T Third Muni Light Rail carries the published route.
Ask about the property's own bookings that weekend before committing. The pass page publishes prices, deadlines and transfer windows. It publishes no block terms, no cut-off date, no rate and no attrition figure. Those four items come from the hotel.
The groupRooms.org San Francisco directory lists 562 hotels as of October 6, 2026, which gives a coordinator a primary property and a fallback inside the city.
