As the city leans into all things World Cup, two focused and fun party zones are coming to life through the talents of one amazing world-class design team.
KC-based Populous, a global event design firm working with KC2026, has masterfully managed the fan magic in their work for both the KC House and the FIFA FanFest, which they call “Kansas City’s front porch to the world.”
Renderings for the KCHouse and FanFest event space were unveiled October, 2025.
KC House, in the former Swanson’s/Forever 21 building on the Plaza, has been under development since early April with plans to open by June 11. It will be an invitation-only venue (111 Nichols Road) operating as the primary hospitality venue for global leaders, civic stakeholders and business partners. It will feature a rooftop outdoor space with jazz and acoustic performances.
FanFest is a free event big enough for 25,000 on the south lawn of the National WWI Museum and Memorial, running from June 11 through July 11 with themed weekly programming, offering live match screenings and musical acts like Tech N9ne and The Chainsmokers. There will be a 65-foot tall KC Heart symbol archway, a 45-foot-by-25-foot primary video board with additional screens, two stages, and local food and drinks. Building out FanFest is set to begin in late April.
“Each one of these programming events at the FanFest is just a moment in time,” says Bobby Sloan, a principal and senior event manager for Populous. “That’s what stays with everybody long after the event is over. It can stick with people for a lifetime, whether it’s a father-son moment or a family moment or you’re just hanging out with your buddies. In five years, or 10 years, long after the FanFest is gone, those memories stay with people.”
From the beginning of their design work in August, 2024, he says, Populous wanted to make sure that Kansas City was properly represented. “When we started to design in earnest, we started off with the positioning session,” he says. “One of the key themes was how to get all that Kansas City ease and comfort and hospitality to come to life through FanFest.”
FanFest’s design is for both the casual soccer fan and the non-soccer fans. “It’s also for somebody that wants to come out, be in the community, and experience the energy of the World Cup,” he says. “The design is about how we look at the tournament holistically, across the vertical and horizontal nature of fandom.”
Sloan says the design was planned to be “kind of fun and playful. That came through in some of the brand exercises, but you’ll start to see that come to life in the daily programming as well.”
People talk about Instagram moments, and selfie moments, and designers sometimes purposely design with that in mind, he says. “Instagramable moments is kind of a buzz word, but I wouldn’t say we necessarily curate anything with just that in mind,” he says. “If we do it right, and plan it out correctly, those moments come to life in multiple areas. The heart archway is going to be the main one as people enter into the site. But there’ll also be other nuggets around the site.”
What does Sloan want people to think of FanFest? “I think when people start using words like special, memorable, amazing, awesome, wow, how did they do this – those are the things that start to give me goosebumps,” he says.
