The Pickle Games, “Largest Pickleball Festival,” Coming to Miami in 2024
The Pickle Games, billed as the largest pickleball festival in the world, is a go for Miami Marine Stadium January 13-14, 2024. The event is the brainchild of Steve Suarez, the founder of BlackStage Productions and the fitness festival Wodapalooza.
“In January, I started playing pickleball and fell in love with the sport,” Suarez tells New Times. “I researched the sport, tournaments, and get-togethers and realized there was a gap in our marketplace for a large-scale, palooza-type event. So, now we’re doing it.”
As for the largest pickleball festival in the world claim, Suarez plans to have 100 courts installed on the Miami Marine Stadium grounds for the event. Among them, there will be a stadium court with seating for 1,000, smoke machines, LED lights, and other effects. Another court is planned to the placed on an anchored barge.
VIP lounges, live performances, culinary vendors, seminars on the sport, and boutiques with tourney garb, all set against the panoramic vistas of Biscayne Bay, will add to the festival atmosphere. The two-day event plans to host 800 professional and amateur teams and hopes to attract upward of 5,000 attendees daily. For competitors, there will be a 5,000-square-foot athlete village with physical therapists, hydration stations, and Instagram ops. There will also be tournaments for doubles and mixed-doubles teams across age divisions. According to Suarez, there will be a pro division, and the games may partner with a professional organization down the line to draw international talent.
Early-bird registration is now open and priced at $400 per team. That includes entry to the tournament, commemorative merchandise, and access to the athlete village and grounds all weekend. Tickets for the public will be unveiled at a later date.
“This is going to be a truly unique experience, and we are ecstatic it is happening,” Suarez says. “It will be in an iconic and perfect place, and it will be focused on the folks out there that are playing pickleball every day. I hope they enjoy it.”
The Pickle Games. Saturday, January 13, and Sunday, January 14, 2024, at Miami Marine Stadium, 3501 Rickenbacker Cswy., Miami; thepicklegames.com. Registration costs $400 per team.
