2026 Sponsors and Venues
Regional Arts & Culture Council Grant
We are extremely grateful to the RACC board for awarding the Bigfoot Poetry Festival a grant of $5,000 for our 2026 season. This grant will go towards helping the festival cover venue rentals, advertisements, printing promotional materials and festival brochures, and so much more.
The RACC’s mission: For decades, RACC has aimed to serve every neighborhood of our region to ensure that arts and culture are accessible to all. Our mission is to enrich our communities through arts and culture. We envision a thriving region, powered by creativity, with arts and culture in every neighborhood
Awesome Portland Foundation
We are so excited to announce that Awesome Portland (the local chapter of the Awesome Foundation) has awarded the Bigfoot Poetry Festival a grant of $1,000 for our 2026 season. This grant will go towards renting space at our primary venue this year, the downtown Hyatt Centric, as well as buying free snacks for festival attendees, available at the Central Library.
The Awesome Foundation’s mission: The Awesome Foundation is an ever-growing worldwide community devoted to forwarding the interest of awesome in the universe.
The hyatt Centric Downtown Portland.
813 SW Alder St.
We’re pleased to announce that our primary venue this year will be the Hyatt Centric in downtown Portland! We’ll be hosting poetry open mics and workshops in the Hyatt Centric’s second floor Pettygrove meeting space for all three days of the festival this year.
The Hyatt Centric is also the 2026 Bigfoot Poetry Festival host hotel (more info here), and their first floor restaurant, the Wanderlust Kitchen & Bar, will be one of our two preliminary slam bout locations.
First Congregational United Church of Christ
1126 SW Park Ave.
We are back at the First Congregational United Church of Christ for our fifth festival in a row. Catch the Bigfoot Poetry Festival’s 2026 Finals Stage at the UCC on the park blocks the evening of Saturday, June 27th, where the top four teams will compete to find out who’ll be taking home first this year!
Fortune
614 sw 11th ave.
We are excited to collaborate with Fortune for the first time on some events! We’ll be at Fortune the night of Thursday, June 25th, for a couple of late night events. Fortune is donating their space to the 2026 Bigfoot Poetry Festival.
Guilder Coffee
1035 W Burnside St.
Nestled on the first floor of the downtown Powell’s Books, we are happy to be returning once again to Guilder Coffee for our Welcome Open Mic the night of June 24th. Guilder is donating their space for this event that kicks off the whole poetry festival.
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St.
We’re so excited to be partnering with Kelly’s Olympian for a special festival event! This event will be happening late night on Friday, June 26th. Check in with some of the registered poets or volunteers to get the skinny on what’ll be happening in Kelly’s performance area that night!
Multnomah County
Central Library
801 SW 10th Ave.
We are excited to be returning to the Multnomah County Central Library for our fourth time. The Central Library is once again opening their doors for us to host poetry open mics for all three days of the festival up on their third floor in the Collins Gallery. All events at the downtown library will be part of our affinity-themed poetry open mics.
Portland Center STage
128 NW 11th Ave.
We are at Portland Center Stage this year on the morning of June 27th for both our Poetry Market and our Youth Poetry Slam. These two events will be taking place up on their second level mezzanine.
Powell’s City of Books
1035 W Burnside St.
Powell’s Books will, for a fifth time, be donating space to the Bigfoot Poetry Festival for our poetry slam tournament. Happening the first two nights of the competition, we will see two slams take place on Powell’s third floor in the Pearl Room each evening.
Powell’s is also generously donating a $50 gift card to the festival, which will be a first place prize for the winner of our Youth Poetry Slam the morning of June 27th.
Stumptown Coffee Roasters
1140 SW Washington St.
We’re so excited to have Stumptown partnering with us again for a fourth year in a row. They will be providing coffee for our Poetry Market (happening at Portland Center Stage) the morning of June 27th. This coffee will be free to all poets and attendees!
Tender Loving Empire
412 SW 10th Ave.
We are partnering with Tender Loving Empire’s downtown location for the fourth time this festival. They are providing a 10% discount to poets and volunteers when they show their lanyard badges at the register of their SW 10th Avenue location.
They are also donating select items to be auctioned off at our Slam Olympics fundraising event on June 1st at Barrel Room.
WanderLust Kitchen & Bar
601 SW 11th Ave.
We are collaborating with the Wanderlust Kitchen & Bar. While this is our first time working with Wanderlust, we were in this same space last year when it operated as Covet.PDX. Wanderlust is generously donating space to us for both nights.
Once again, this space will serve as one of our two venues hosting preliminary bouts of our poetry tournament. Happening the first two nights of the competition, we will see two slams take place here each evening.
Yoga on yamhill.
124 SW yamhill st.
Thank you so much to Yoga on Yamhill for partnering with us for a third year in a row! They will, again, be lending us a handful of yoga mats to use for an early morning yoga session at the Hyatt Centric’s Pettygrove venue space.