The Three Rivers Arts Festival – An Annual Favorite

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The Three Rivers Arts Festival Features Hundreds of Artists

If you like buying art from (mostly) independent artisans, the Three Rivers Arts Festival is for you. Arts Landing plus nearby roads and bridges are transformed into a collection of hundreds of tents from artisans both local, regional, and national. Yes, it is not all Pittsburgh artists at this one.

In fact, the tenants of the tents also rotate out throughout the event, meaning you could return for the second weekend of the festival and find even more unique shops and artisans to shop at (although many do remain both weekends). This is an important distinction when it comes to the arts festival, and is one we'll touch on more later on in this article.

Moving on to the art installations themselves, the Three Rivers Arts Festival uses its name to help promote many local art exhibits that are permanent year round, as well as other custom exhibits that can be found at places like the August Wilson Center and other free art galleries in downtown Pittsburgh.

But they do create some specifically for the festival, like the premiere of a multi-media art performance from Squonk in 2026 that incorporated a full band as well as art that could be interacted with by the audience!

Time Your Visit to the Pittsburgh Arts Festival for Performances

When visiting the Three Rivers Arts Festival, it is worth keeping in mind that there will be numerous performances throughout the weekend, including at the stage at Arts Landing (where the headliners typically perform), pop-up stages elsewhere at Arts Landing, and even a stage on the bridges or nearby roads as well.

In many cases, performances are scheduled such that they can alternate- a secondary stage in Arts Landing may have an act begin in-between two bands on the main stage, allowing visitors to check out everything during a visit.

That said, schedule timelines can be tight, and some experiences often overlap, so make sure to check out the event schedule to not miss anything!

I'll call that a good problem, even if we ourselves missed out on a lot.

Overall, the Three Rivers Arts Festival is one of the premier festivals in Pittsburgh each and every year. This multi-week festival attracts tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of visitors throughout its duration, and offers a fairly intense schedule of events that in all honesty make it quite difficult to experience it all.

So be sure to plan your visit to this one well in advance, know you're not going to experience it all in a single visit, and have a great time!

The Three Rivers Arts Festival typically takes place in Pittsburgh each June in and around Arts Landing. Information about vendors, performances, and art installations for the next art's festival can be found at their event's website at the previous link.

For more things to do in Pittsburgh in June, click the previous link! While downtown, also don't miss a number of great Pittsburgh restaurants to try as well!