Panama City's downtown events for fall 2026 look like separate listings on a calendar: a free concert series, a haunted walk-through and a two-day music festival. Look at who is behind them, though, and they turn out to be one circuit. One local arts nonprofit runs both the Thursday concerts and the haunt. Two songwriters on the concert lineup turn up again on the festival bill. A few blocks of Harrison Avenue host nearly all of it, right next to a waterfront that's about to become a construction site.
As of Tuesday, October 6, three Thursday concerts are left. The haunt opens next week, and the festival is a month out. Here's how they link up.
Bay Arts Alliance Holds Both Thursday Nights in October
BackStage Pass is Bay Arts Alliance's free concert series. The City of Panama City's Parks, Culture & Recreation Department is listed among its sponsors. Shows start at 7 p.m. every Thursday on the Marina Lawn at 7 Harrison Avenue, between Hotel Indigo and Harrison's Kitchen & Bar. The season opened September 17 and runs through October 22. The organizers suggest bringing your own chair or blanket.
The Rock Mob, Flow Tribe and the Gage Cowart Band have already played. The rest of the season looks like this:
| Thursday | Performer |
|---|---|
| October 8 | J and the Causeways |
| October 15 | Goodbye to Sunshine |
| October 22 | Cat Ridgeway and the Tourists |
The last two of those Thursdays also open the two runs of Fright Nights at the Panama City Center for the Arts. The haunt runs Thursday through Saturday, October 15–17, then Thursday through Sunday, October 22–25, from 6 to 9 p.m. each night. On October 15 and October 22, the haunt has been going for an hour when the first song starts on the Marina Lawn. Both events are downtown, and both are put on by the same organization.
Bay Arts Alliance calls Fright Nights its major annual fundraiser. So the free Thursday concerts and the paid Thursday haunt make up two halves of one nonprofit's fall. This year's theme is "Dreamwalkers." It picks up the Raven Queen storyline from earlier years, and visitors enter her subconscious and explore her memories to settle a debt she owes an ancient Collector. Single tickets are listed at $20. The October 2024 coverage in the News Herald described it as an immersive experience built on effects, sound and visuals.
That gives October 15 and October 22 a sequence the rest of the season doesn't have. You can book a haunt slot at the Center for the Arts, then walk over to the Marina Lawn for the 7 p.m. set. Or start at the concert and leave the haunt for the Friday, Saturday or Sunday night of the same week.
Two Songwriters Carry the Lawn Into November
Once the concert series ends, the next big downtown event is the 8th Annual Panama City Songwriters Festival on November 6–7. Its venues are within walking distance of one another. It's organized by the Bay Youth Music Association, and proceeds support its youth music programs. So the lead organizer changes between October and November, but downtown events are still raising money for local arts.
The musicians carry over too. Gage Cowart played the Marina Lawn on October 1, and Cat Ridgeway closes BackStage Pass on October 22. Both are on the festival's artist lineup, along with Lauren Frihauf and Reed Waddle. If you heard either of them with a full band by the water, the festival gives you a second chance to hear them. Songwriter festivals are built on smaller rooms and the stories behind the songs.
The festival schedule spreads the music across six downtown venues: The Portal Downtown, the courtyard at Trigo, the Panama City Center for the Arts, Downtown Boxing Ring, Lightroom and Atelier. The first sets on the schedule give a sense of how it runs:
- The Portal Downtown, 5:00 p.m.: Leana Carter, Jeff Bouet, Gage Cowart
- Trigo (Courtyard), 5:00 p.m.: Dailen Spencer, Avery Gipson, Sammy Shepard
- Panama City Center for the Arts, 5:10 p.m.: Corey Hall, Michael R. J. Roth
- Downtown Boxing Ring, 5:15 p.m.: Garrett Jay Brown, Stevie Jean
The Center for the Arts is on that venue list, so the same building goes from Raven Queen haunt in late October to songwriter stage two weeks later. The ticket listing runs from 5 p.m. on November 6 to 10 p.m. on November 7.
The festival's two ticket tiers:
- General Admission, $60 plus a $1.50 service fee: Covers every venue on both days.
- VIP, $100 plus a $2.50 service fee: Adds drink tickets, VIP seating where available and after-party access.
A free season on the lawn ends October 22 and a $60 weekend pass starts November 6, and the two share performers. If you've been to the Thursday concerts, you already know part of the festival bill.
The Lawn Is About to Get a Neighbor
The Marina Lawn has hosted this circuit for years, and the water beside it is about to change. On August 25, 2026, the Panama City Commission voted 4–0 to award construction of the first 50 wet slips in the western basin of the downtown marina to Art Marine, LLC, the lowest bidder. The same meeting approved a prepayment and participation-rent agreement with Joe PCOZ, LLC and gave the parties 60 days to return with a management agreement. WMBB reported the Art Marine award at about $2.9 million. WJHG reported the prepayment at up to $5 million, with construction expected to start by December 2026.
Those numbers mean more next to where the project stood in the spring. In April 2026, the city put Phase 1 at about $10 million and said it would build the first 50 slips without a private partner. In June, the commission ended its effort to reach a long-term agreement with City Marina Partners. The city received 14 bids on June 24. The project went from bid documents to a named contractor and a construction window in about four months. None of these sources gives an opening date for the slips. The firm date is the expected December start, which comes after this concert season ends.
So the 2026 BackStage Pass season is the last one with this view of the water, before work starts on the boat slips next to the lawn. When the series comes back next fall, the basin beside it will look different.
New tenants are also lined up along the same streets. WJHG reported in July 2026 that Dat Cajun Pearl, a New Orleans-style restaurant, is planned for the historic Mashburn Building downtown, with an opening expected in spring 2027. The building's owner is also considering a rooftop bar, with no date announced. The sources give an expected season for the restaurant and no timeline for the rooftop bar. Dat Cajun Pearl's spring 2027 target puts it before next fall's concert season.
For now, the dates that matter are October 8, 15 and 22 on the lawn, the two runs of Fright Nights, and November 6–7 for the festival. For more on how the city compares with the beaches to the west, see our Panama City neighborhood guide and our look at Panama City versus 30A.
If the marina rebuild and the new tenants downtown have you wondering what your Panama City home is worth, Shannon Cartrett is glad to talk it through. Request a Free Consultation & Home Valuation, and we'll look at your home alongside what's changing on the waterfront.
