Portland's strangest annual gathering is back for its third year, and this time organizers are expecting more than 1,000 guests to descend on Oaks Amusement Park for a day that includes a chicken beauty contest, an interpretive dance competition, and a rave built just for kids. Weird Fest returns Saturday, September 19, running from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Oaks Park's longtime home along the Willamette River.
The festival is organized by Weird Portland United, a nonprofit founded in 2018 by performance artist Brian Kidd, better known around town as The Unipiper. As reported by The Portland Tribune, the group describes its mission as making room for both longtime Portlanders and newcomers to shape the city's identity, supporting the creators and risk-takers who help define its culture. Kidd himself became a national fixture starting in 2012, when videos of him riding a unicycle in a kilted Darth Vader costume while playing flame-throwing bagpipes landed him spots on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “America's Got Talent,” according to Wikipedia.
Weird Portland United frames the whole enterprise as a celebration of creativity, authenticity and unity, with a stated goal of making Portland a place where misfits can belong. The Tribune's report notes that Saturday's lineup brings together dozens of local vendors, craft makers, musicians and performers across the day, all built around the idea that oddity is worth protecting rather than smoothing over as the city changes.
Fire Bagpipes, Fruit Costumes and a Synth-Lounge Mattress
Live music runs throughout the day on the festival's Boom Box Stage, and the bill leans into the same anything-goes spirit as the rest of the event. The Scaredies play songs inspired by scary movies, while Cartoon Violence USA, a costumed musical group, mixes crime-fighter theatrics with West Coast and nerdcore hip-hop and chiptune sounds, per the Tribune's rundown of the lineup.
Other acts include Sweet n' Juicy, a fruit-themed party band, and Don and the Quixotes, a surf band inspired by 17th-century Spanish literature. Rounding things out is Mattress, billed as a future synth-lounge singer. Between sets, festivalgoers can wander through the chicken beauty contest, take in the interpretive dance competition, or bring the kids to the dedicated kids rave.
A Slogan Two Decades in the Making
The phrase Weird Fest celebrates traces back to 2003, when Music Millennium record store owner Terry Currier introduced “Keep Portland Weird” to the city after watching the “Keep Austin Weird” movement take hold in Texas, according to Wikipedia. Currier trademarked the phrase in 2007, and it has since become shorthand for defending independent local business against corporate homogenization. Kidd founded Weird Portland United in 2018 specifically to preserve and promote that eccentric culture during a period of rapid urban development, as detailed by OPB.
The nonprofit's fundraising has taken unconventional forms over the years, including a “Portland Elvis” beer collaboration with Gigantic Brewing that helped cover housing costs for local impersonator John “Elvis” Schroder, and $500 micro-grants distributed to artists whose livelihoods were disrupted during the pandemic. Under president Christine Lassiter, who performs as a unicorn centaur character named Aurelia Stardancer, the organization has held private indoor galas and a large public festival.
A Century-Old Venue Still Adapting
Oaks Amusement Park itself carries its own long history of reinvention. The park first opened on May 30, 1905, as an electric trolley park built by the Oregon Water Power and Railway Company to boost weekend streetcar ridership, and it remains one of the oldest continuously operating amusement parks in the country. Robert Bollinger donated Oaks Amusement Park in 1985 to the nonprofit Oaks Park Association, which today preserves historic landmarks including a 1912 Herschell-Spillman carousel.
The park has also had to balance that preservation mission with modern additions. City officials approved a new 135-foot drop tower ride at the park in July 2025 after determining its lighting plan met municipal standards, a decision that came despite appeals from wildlife advocates concerned about migratory bird disruption along the Willamette River, as Hoodline previously reported.
Getting There and What It Costs
General admission to Saturday's festival starts at $15, and children 12 and under get in free. The park sits at 7805 S.E. Oaks Park Way, and visitors now have an easier car-free option than in past years. The Portland Bureau of Transportation first expanded BIKETOWN e-bike infrastructure into Sellwood-Moreland in 2024 with new stations at S.E. Spokane Street and Oaks Park Way; the three stations added in 2026 were on S.E. Milwaukie Avenue, connecting riders directly to the venue via the 21-mile paved Springwater Corridor trail, according to Hoodline's coverage of the rollout.
Weird Fest's first outing on September 7, 2024, drew enough attention that the City of Portland officially proclaimed that date Keep Portland Weird Day, cementing the event's place on the city's cultural calendar just two years into its run. Whether Saturday's expanded lineup and bigger expected crowd push the tradition further into the civic mainstream or keep it rooted in its grassroots origins remains an open question for a festival built on resisting easy categorization.
