River Festival
2024 Cambridge Arts River Festival
Cambridge Arts River Festival Returns June 21, 2025
The 2025 Cambridge Arts River Festival will be held on June 21, 2025.
Cambridge Arts is not accepting submissions for performers for the 2025 festival.
The annual festival began in the early 1970s. The
2024 Cambridge Arts River Festival was held on the banks of the Charles River on June 15, along Memorial Drive, between JFK Street and Western Avenue. The 2024 festival offered six stages of music, theater, dance and poetry; the Mermaid Promenade; interactive art-making; buskers; international foods; and an arts and crafts market.
Cambridge Arts previously adapted the event for the covid pandemic, with virtual Stream Festivals in 2020 and 2021 and the Ripple Festival in 2022, a series of smaller in-person performances and arts markets rippling out into Cambridge neighborhoods in the spirit of the River Festival. During 2023 the River Festival was not held, as the pandemic continued to provide challenges for the long-term planning and fund-raising required to produce the showcase of food, arts, crafts, immersive art experiences and multiple stages of live music, dance, poetry and theater.
BEST Festival Winner!
Boston Magazine named the Cambridge Arts River Festival the Best Festival of 2017 and then again in 2018: "This annual extravaganza isn’t just about seeing contemporary work—it’s about immersing yourself in it. Along with musical, dance, and theater acts, you’ll find a poetry tent, huge wild-animal puppets, and beatbox workshops. In other words, sweet, sweet sensory overload."
The City of Cambridge does not discriminate on the basis of disability. The City may provide auxiliary aids and services, written materials in alternative formats, and reasonable modifications in policies and procedures to qualified individuals with disabilities. For information contact Cambridge Arts: Phone: 617-349-4380, TDD: 617-349-4621
