San Diego is getting ready for four days of pure creative joy. La Jolla Playhouse has announced the full lineup for the 2026 WOW Festival, its celebrated festival of immersive and site-inspired work, presented in partnership with UC San Diego.
The festival will take place April 23-26 on the UC San Diego campus, featuring more than two dozen theatre, dance, music, puppetry, and spectacle events by acclaimed local, national, and international artists. The best part: admission is free, and the vast majority of productions are presented free of charge, with only a handful of ticketed shows ranging from $10 to $29.
The 2026 program spans the globe, with highlights including Suzik by FORCE (South Korea), Jam Side Up! by The Kif-Kif Sisters (Canada), Choir! Choir! Choir! presented by ArtPower at UC San Diego, Handle with Care by Ontroerend Goed (Belgium), and the Chicago marching band Mucca Pazza. Homegrown talent shines too, with productions by San Diego’s own Animal Cracker Conspiracy, Blindspot Collective, DrumatiX, and Project [BLANK], plus three art installations: LAMP, Light Lane, and Sung Forests.
Families will also enjoy La Jolla Playhouse’s 2026 Performance Outreach Program (POP) Tour production, Colorin, Colorado, as well as projects created by the San Diego Unified School District Honors Theatre Project and UC San Diego Theatre and Dance students.
Since 2011, the Without Walls (WOW) program has brought audiences and artists together in unexpected places, becoming one of the region’s most beloved performance traditions. The full festival schedule is available at wowfestival.org. This is Happy City News cheering for San Diego’s artists!
Photo: La Jolla Playhouse
