Florence Rhododendron Festival wraps 119th year, planning begins for 2027

Floats, equestrian entries, bands and court royalty brought Florence’s biggest tradition back into the streets as the 119th Rhododendron Festival closed with the Grand Floral Parade and planning for 2027 was already underway. The celebration remains one of the coast’s most visible civic rituals, drawing roughly 100 parade entrants and thousands of visitors into Historic Old Town.

Florence Area Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Bettina Hannigan called the festival “a family tradition” and “an Oregon institution,” language that fits a weekend built as much around community memory as spectacle. The 2026 theme, “A Gathering With a Good Heart,” and the festival logo came from the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, who also served as grand marshal for the parade, a collaboration that gave the event a clearer public link to the people whose lands and history shaped the region.

The chamber said Florence Elks #1858 won the Grand Floral Champion award, with other honors going to entries in the non-commercial, commercial, equestrian, band and court categories. Vendors in Old Town said the festival delivered a “big boost” for business as visitors moved between Bay Street, the parade route and local storefronts. Tourism partners say the festival can draw as many as 10,000 people, while other estimates put weekend attendance as high as 15,000.

That traffic matters in a city where the Rhododendron Festival has long functioned as both celebration and economic engine. Held every third full weekend in May, the festival dates to May 20, 1908, when Florence crowned Queen Rhododendra Laura Johnson. The Rhododendron Flower Show, which began in 1971, now features well over 1,000 trusses at the Florence Events Center, underscoring how the event has expanded beyond a single parade into a citywide roster of coronation events, carnival rides, a Rhody Run and Walk, a car show, live music, an arts festival and the rhododendron show and sale.

Organizers are already looking ahead to the 120th festival, which will open May 8, 2027. Keeping the weekend relevant will mean more than preserving nostalgia. The next version will need the same anchors that have carried Rhody Fest for generations, but also the kind of fresh programming, visual energy and community partnerships that keep a century-old gathering meaningful to families returning home, local businesses counting on the crowds and visitors seeing Florence for the first time.