There have been business changes and improvements — and they’ll continue — but one thing remains certain to everybody involved: The Rose Festival will remain a traditional, historical event in Portland for many years to come.

It’s too big and too important to let it fade away for financial reasons.

“The Rose Festival will find a way as it has in many different times from 1907 on,” said Rose Festival CEO Marilyn Clint.

Clint, who plans to retire after the 2025 festival, and others have been rallying around the festival. The new Rose Festival Foundation board president, Jeremy Emerson, has a strong background in event management. There have been task force meetings about tightening the budget and looking for ways to improve the Rose Festival.

This means there is a lot of hope going into the 2025 festival, which begins with the CityFair opening and fireworks on Friday, May 23, and continues through June 8 at Tom McCall Waterfront Park and elsewhere.

The theme: ‘All Together Now’
The Rose Festival includes almost everything it has featured in recent years, minus some things, such as the Oregon Brewers Festival.

There’ll be CityFair for three weekends and concerts at CityFair. There’ll be the three parades (Starlight, May 31; Junior, June 4; Grand Floral, June 7), a new Rose Festival Queen crowned June 6 (succeeding Portland’s Kobi Flowers), and Fleet Week (June 5-8). Plus much more, including the 87th Annual Royal Rosarian Rose Garden Contest and Dragon Boat Races.

The big parade news: The Grand Floral Parade will return to a downtown Portland route, as in the past, using the same route as the Starlight Parade. Staging won’t happen at Veterans Memorial Coliseum for the first time since the 1961 festival, shortly after the Glass Palace opened.

Fantastic floats, bands and more will be part of the Grand Floral Parade — and a wedding. Yes, nuptials take place — “Love on Parade” — as Rose Festival Clown Angel Ocasio administers the short ceremony between Jasmine Murphy and David Hakimoglu. The ceremony will be captured on the KPTV (Fox 12) broadcast, of course.

Clint will certainly be missed. She has been involved with the Rose Festival for 50 years, getting her start after a try at being a Rose Festival princess and then walking in the door as a seasonal employee.

But, in classic Clint fashion, she wants the Rose Festival to take center stage. She’ll be feted later.

“I don’t want the Rose Festival to be about me,” she said. “I haven’t made any secret that my time is coming to a close, we’ve talked about it.”

The nonprofit Rose Festival will be looking for a new CEO and possibly a chief operating officer, but it’s in good hands with Emerson serving as board president. He has a lot of knowledge and experience running such events.

The Rose Festival has been struggling financially in recent years. It was supported by federal funds during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Clint said the organization lost more than $1 million in 2024, after losing $600,000 in 2023.

Clint said the eight-person task force has cut about $800,000 from the operating budget.

“We’re all challenged, especially legacy events around Portland,” Clint said.

“I’ve been around the Rose Festival for all these years — I’m a Rose Festival historian — and over the course of history there have been many years where they thought the Rose Festival was going out of business. Somehow we find a way to come back and figure it out. It’s important to be honest about it — it’s expensive, there are a lot of costs associated with it. … We’re doing all the same events and programs, it’s just about infrastructure change.”

The Rose Festival lives on, thanks to people like Clint, board members, dedicated employees, seasonal hires, volunteers, and most importantly, all the great visitors and fans.

“Yep, we’re not going anywhere, but it has to pencil out and there has to be responsibility,” Emerson said. “At the same time there are too many signs for me — giant celebrations and large-scale public events are critical to sense of place and community.”

Let the party begin!