Well, that didn’t take long. Days after the World Cup wrapped up, fans are reselling their once highly coveted swag.
The FIFA World Cup resale market is on fire, and that includes Fan Fest attendees profiting off their freebies, including the viral Bank of America charm bracelets.
For those uninitiated: Throughout the duration of the World Cup, fans at U.S. host cities lined up in droves to get their hands on free swag, especially these darned bracelets.
Mimicking a Pandora bracelet, the “Fan Bands” are composed of a red, blue, or black woven band and an assortment of metal charms laced through. Available charms included numbers, flags, a World Cup trophy, and designs that pair with World Cup host cities. Philly, for instance, had boxing gloves, a cheesesteak, and the LOVE statue.
It was the World Cup’s hottest free accessory, but it cost interested parties hours of their time. At one point, wait times in Philadelphia were reported to be four to eight hours. Weeks later, Philly’s Fan Fest refashioned the waiting process, citing high demand. Instead of a free-for-all giant line, organizers nationwide pivoted to a ticketed system with set time windows to receive bracelets.
Bank of America called the demand for the bracelets “unprecedented.”
Now, they’re a relic of a time that has come and gone — and are selling for anywhere from $10 to $150, no line required.
Fashion expert and pro-thrifter Virginia Chamlee says this isn’t surprising.
“The secondary market for the FIFA Fan Fest bracelets is all about scarcity and exclusivity — the second something is ‘free but limited,’ or ‘difficult to obtain,’ it stops being a souvenir, and it becomes a status symbol,” she said. “So people aren’t really buying free beads; they’re buying the two-hour line they didn’t actually wait in.”
On Facebook Marketplace, dozens of bracelets are listed across Philadelphia. Some sellers said they waited about an hour; one said they volunteered at Fan Fest, which gave them easy access to swag; another said they were selling after snagging the bracelets for their kids, who evidently didn’t like their charm selection.
In a few listings, bracelet-holders are hoping to trade with others for different charms.
On eBay, things get more intense. A recent scan, filtering for sold listings, shows bracelets have allegedly sold for as much as $500 in some cases. There was also a listing that sold for $1,000 that included bracelets from nearly every host city. By the knockout rounds of the World Cup, Bank of America unveiled a handful of additional commemorative charms. Bracelets with those charms are in especially high demand.
As of Tuesday, eBay showed over 1,600 active listings for the Fan Bands. Chamlee says it all boils down to desire, and maybe a little bit of FOMO.
“To me, this is no different from paying for a resold Taylor Swift Eras tour tee when you didn’t actually go to the concert, or a Trader Joe’s tote that’s been considerably marked up,” Chamlee said. “In these cases, the price isn’t really set by the object itself (i.e. how much it cost to produce) but by how badly someone wants to say they were there.”
Bank of America says the Fan Bands’ success has exceeded expectations. The company had more than 2 million bracelets and 10 million beads to distribute, it said in a statement at the beginning of the World Cup. Within the first two weeks of the tournament’s nearly six-week run, the company announced it had given away more than 700,000 bracelets across the 11 host cities.
“For Bank of America, this is a marketing win by almost any metric,” Chamlee said. “A giveaway meant to build brand goodwill has evolved into a resale market. That’s free earned media most brands would pay millions for.”
In the NBA, it’s when a player loses his burst or first-step. Eventually, the player’s statistics dip, injuries pile up, and the calls for retirement become unavoidable.
Rap superstar J. Cole, whose latest album is called The Fall-Off, loves the sport. His music is coded with basketball references, begging comparisons between an athlete’s dedication on the court to Cole’s in the studio. He, being a basketball player himself, understands how the game can force you to hang up your jersey, even when you feel there’s more to give.
The same rules don’t apply to the rap game, and Cole knows that. At 41, Cole made a brief pro basketball run in China in April, when most athletes his age have either retired or are in the twilight of their careers.
The Grammy-winning rapper J. Cole brought Fayetteville to Philly on his “The Fall-Off World Tour” stop at Xfinity Mobile Arena on July 20, 2026.MIKE JONES
Sure, his new song claims “the fall-off is inevitable,” but unlike an aged NBA star, there’s nothing that points to Cole’s musical decline.
His first of two shows at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Monday night for “The Fall-Off World Tour” was enough proof.
Despite his initial claims that The Fall-Off would be his last studio album, the man isn’t showing signs of retiring. He’s relishing the moment, enjoying the ride he’s taken with his fans since 2007’s The Come Up, and occasionally taking personal detours along the way. And to his fans’ delight, he doesn’t let his foot off the gas.
Cole’s journey to the Xfinity Mobile Arena stage began amid the crowd. Dressed in an unassuming black sweatshirt, he appeared sitting in the stands, in the middle of an arena spotlight. . A video of him appeared on the stage’s LED screen; a title card identified Jermaine Lamarr Cole as the director of the show we were about to witness.
With “39 Intro” blaring in the arena, Cole walked through the crowd shaking hands with everyone in his path.
The battered Honda Civic that Cole has kept from his college days, and later drove across the country to promote The Fall-Off’s release, descended onto the stage.
From then on, Cole was in the driver’s seat.
With a replica of Fayetteville, N.C.’s historic Market House in the background, he transitioned to hard-hitting odes to his hometown.
When he performed “Two Six,” a reference to the 26th county in North Carolina where his city lies, the crowd swung their tour-branded towels in the air like fans at an NBA playoff game.
“We’re only a few songs in, and I can tell this [is] one of them ones,” Cole said less than 10 minutes into his setlist, before breaking into “Safety,” followed by a five-minute monologue about Disc 29, the first half of The Fall-Off.
The Grammy-winning rapper J. Cole brought Fayetteville to Philly on his “The Fall-Off World Tour” stop at Xfinity Mobile Arena on July 20, 2026.MIKE JONES
These moments allowed Cole to delve deep into his creative choices and concepts, but it was at the expense of the show’s momentum. He halted tracks like “Life Sentence” to express how much he wants his fans’ marriages to succeed, all to little effect.
Those lengthy spiels aside, the sequencing of his songs provided a window into Cole’s mind. And with every changing record and shift in the emotional weight, the stage backdrop changed hues — from bright amber on “Two Six” to deep blues and violets on “Poor Thang.”
The smoke intensified as Cole bounced from 2014’s “A Tale of 2 Citiez” and “Fire Squad,” before pausing to ask the crowd for a quick favor. “Philly, I know y’all don’t play about your sports teams … Whether you’re from PA, Philly, or Jersey, can y’all pretend y’all from Fayetteville for this one song? Is that cool?”
It didn’t take much convincing.
He broke into “Old Dog,” and the crowd obliged – erupting as the booming record sprung into rotation.
As a note of thanks, Cole played a medley of one-off singles and collaborative hits, including “MIDDLE CHILD” and “a lot,” his Grammy-winning collab with 21 Savage.
He polled the audience to see which of his fans could spit his verse on Benny the Butcher’s “Johnny P’s Caddy,” and one lucky Altoona, Pa., native was handpicked to join him on stage.
Colethen moved to early mixtape favorites like “Lights Please” and “In the Mourning” before leaping to radio jams like “Work Out” and “Nobody’s Perfect,” all with seamless execution..
The crowd rose to their feet for “Wet Dreamz” and hoisted their phone lights to “Love Yourz.”
Then, after singing “Power Trip” and “Planez,” Cole proceeded to spoil the show’s end.
“I can’t lie, I have two more songs left,” he declared. “The second is a selfish one. It’s for me.”
The first was “No Role Modelz,” a track accompanied with an AI video of Cole dressed as former President George W. Bush misstating a common proverb during his 2002 visit to a Nashville high school.
“Fool me once … shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again,” Cole rapped, repeated the former president’s words. The obviously doctored video briefly amused the crowd (and Cole).
The Grammy-winning rapper J. Cole brought Fayetteville to Philly on his “The Fall-Off World Tour” stop at Xfinity Mobile Arena on July 20, 2026.MIKE JONES
The final song of Cole’s performance was “Quik Stop.” Another personal detour, but a welcome one, no doubt.
“It’s not a hit record. So, if you want to leave to beat traffic, I get it,” he said. “I got to do this song.”
Fans barely budged as Cole closed the two-hour show with a record that encapsulates how one encounter with a fan reminded him of his musical existence.
That closing record was reflective of Cole’s delivery throughout the show.
He isn’t one for onstage theatrics, synchronized pyrotechnics, or elaborate LED graphics. It’s just him and a microphone, a direct exchange between him and his fans with a few monologues thrown into the mix.
As it stands, Cole hasn’t lost sight of that connection, and he certainly hasn’t lost his musical touch or command on stage.
There’s no “falling off” here, only falling forward. Cole is still commanding the rap game, as a great point guard controls the flow of offense.
And neither he nor his Honda Civic has met its last stop yet.
ESPN went through another round of layoffs Tuesday, this time stemming from its purchase of the NFL Network.
The cuts targeted both on-air talent and behind-the-scenes employees, according to sources not authorized to speak publicly. The layoffs are part of wider cutbacks at Disney previewed in April by CEO Josh D’Amaro and a consolidation of employees at ESPN and the NFL Network.
In a note to staff Tuesday morning, ESPN chair Jimmy Pitaro said the company was forced to “make some difficult decisions about job impacts” stemming from the merger, and that the moves were intended to “best position us for the future.” Employees were being notified Tuesday, Pitaro said.
“While most of the job impacts are tied to the acquisition, we will also notify colleagues in other parts of the company today that their positions have been impacted,” Pitaro added.
ESPN declined to comment.
Longtime ESPN announcer Karl Ravech is among those reportedly being let go. Brett Davis, Brett Davis-Imagn I
Ravech had been with ESPN since 1993, covering baseball for more than three decades in a variety of roles, including as the voice of Sunday Night Baseball for four seasons. He had been slated to call the Little League World Series for ESPN next month.
NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero was also reportedly among the cuts. He’s been with the network since 2017 and is one of the network’s top insiders, along with Ian Rapoport and Philly native Mike Garafolo.
Rapoport signed a multiyear contract with ESPN in April.
ESPN also parted ways with former Carolina Panthers quarterback and NFL MVP Cam Newton, as first reported by Outkick’s Bobby Burack. Newton has been a frequent guest on First Take with Stephen A. Smith during the NFL season.
Longtime NFL Network analyst Charles Davis, best known for calling NFL games on Fox and CBS, was also let go, according to The Athletic. This fall he’ll replace Gary Danielson as CBS’s lead college football analyst on Big Ten games alongside Brad Nessler.
Other ESPN staffers reportedly let go were veteran SportsCenter anchor David Lloyd, sports injury analyst Stephania Bell, and ex-NFL linebacker Bart Scott, who cohosted an ESPN radio show in New York City with one-time 94.1 WIP host Chris Carlin.
Boxing and MMA reporter Andreas Hale and staff writer Dan Hajducky both announced their own layoffs on social media.
“I’ve been here before. Change is constant, but the outcomes are uncertain,” Hale wrote.
Ryan Clark pulled from live show
Ryan Clark was pulled off NFL Live Monday and informed he was being let go. Jay Biggerstaff, Jay Biggerstaff
Layoffs arrived early for Ryan Clark, the former NFL defender turned TV analyst who has been a star at ESPN for the past decade.
As first reported by The Athletic, Clark was taken off the air midway through NFL Live on Monday and informed he was being let go after reporters began inquiring about his status with the network.
In an Instagram post Tuesday morning, Clark described the incident as “madness.”
“My peace is with God, and my humility comes from within,” Clark wrote. “I’ll continue to build myself so the world can never strip me of what’s real.”
Clark joined ESPN in 2015 and has been a prominent personality across the network’s NFL programming and daytime shows, including Monday Night Countdown with former Eagles star Jason Kelce.
Longtime ESPN host Stephen A. Smith was particular upset by Ryan Clark’s ouster. Jerome Miron/Imagn
Longtime ESPN personality and First Take host Stephen A. Smith called it a “rough day” at the network.
While several regulars from his show were among the cuts, the one-time Inquirer columnist and reporter was particularly irked by Clark’s ouster. Smith described him as “arguably the best NFL analyst in America.”
“The bosses know I’m not happy about this decision. I’ve made that very, very clear,” Smith said Tuesday afternoon on his SiriusXM show Straight Shooter, adding later in the show, “Was I asked what I thought, what my feeling were? Yes, I was. And of course I said we have to keep him.”
Smith also spent time outlining all the cutbacks ESPN has gone through dating back to May 2013. A lot of familiar names were forced out the door in the past decade-plus, including Jeff Van Gundy, Jayson Stark, Todd McShay, Zach Lowe, and Ed Werder.
“This ain’t the days when ESPN could just hire and hire and hire some more without ever having to let go or lay off anybody,” Smith said. “Those days are long gone.”
ESPN purchased NFL Network and NFL Media in February in a deal valued between $2.5 billion and $3 billion. As part of the deal, all NFL Network staffers and personalities became ESPN employees, and the league took a 10% stake in the network.
NFL Network isn’t going anywhere, and will still have original programming, including Good Morning Football, and will broadcast a handful of NFL games.
It’s the second round of layoffs at ESPN in recent months. In the spring, about 30 behind-the-scenes staffers were let go as part of companywide layoffs that reportedly impacted around 1,000 employees.
Every year television host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel takes time off over the summer, and every year audiences wonder who is going to fill in his place.
This week, it’s West Philly’s own Colman Domingo.
The Disclosure Day actor made quite an entrance in his first show on Monday night, wearing a suit with a bow tie and a white robe-like jacket adorned with a pattern of playing card suits.
Domingo dived right into current events in his monologue.
TheFour Seasons star talked about Trump getting booed at the World Cup, right-wing anger over The Odyssey casting Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, and the United Kingdom’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham.
He also called attention to the number of projects he’s been involved in recently, having starred in five films and three television series in the past year alone. Domingo’s busy season corresponds with, as Variety reports, a massive uptick in box office attendance. “Why are movies doing so much better this summer?” the actor asked in his monologue.
“Three words: Colman. F—. Domingo.”
The monologue concluded in a skit where he gave comedian Guillermo Rodriguez, Kimmel’s sidekick and mock security guard, a makeover, very Project Runway style. Rodriguez walked out in a suit with a velvet jacket and flared pants, looking like a mini version of Domingo.
Later in the show, Domingo proceeded to interview Euphoria costar Jacob Elordi and Michael costar Jaafar Jackson. Domingo starred in Euphoria as a recovering addict and sponsor for Zendaya’s character, Rue, and plays Jackson family patriarch Joe Jackson in Michael.
The Temple alum has no plans of slowing down in the next year. His upcoming projects include thriller film An Innocent Girl, Nat King Cole biopic Unforgettable, satirical drama True-ish, and sci-fi romance Strange Arrivals.
The article has been updated to reflect that Colman Domingo will host “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for a week.
What is common to the Rocky run sequence up the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps, the hedge maze scene in The Shining, aerial shots of football games, and underwater footage of Olympic swimmers?
They were all made possible thanks to the same Philadelphia-area inventor.
Oscar-winning cinematographer Garrett Brown invented several camera systems, most notably the Steadicam, a wearable camera rig that allows for stable running shots without any shakiness. That creation, introduced in 1975, revolutionized filmmaking, and now the Philadelphia native’s story is the subject of a documentaryThank You, Mr. Brown.
“He’s a really smart, wise individual, but also just a very humble down-to-earth guy who is very open about daring things and making sure he’s a part of the community,” said director Andrew Schwartz, a longtime friend of Brown’s.
Garrett Brown on set of “The Shining” (1980).Courtesy of Garrett Brown
The two met when Schwartz started teaching at Steadicam workshops around two decades ago in Yellow Springs in Chester County. Brown was always present, he said.
The documentary, currently being filmed in Philadelphia and produced by EBE Productions, includes interviews with Brown and other filmmakers, actors, sports broadcasters, and camera operators.
This includes cinematographer Larry McConkey, best known for shooting the three-minute single shot of the Copacabana in Goodfellas. Francis Ford Coppola, who worked with Brown on One From the Heart, serves as an executive producer.
“[Coppola] doesn’t normally do that for a lot of people and I think it just goes to demonstrate the type of relationship Garrett has fostered in the film industry and with people he worked with,” Schwartz said. “Knowing Francis’ career, this is another guy who’s really paved his own path in his own way and has demonstrated that same daringness and persistence toward his ideas with a somewhat relentless nature.”
Brown, 84, was born in Long Branch, N.J., grew up in Haverford, and lives in the Philadelphia area. He was a folk singer until a friend gifted him a Bolex camera. Before long, Brown decided he wanted to work in the movie business and create something that had never been made before.
“He basically locked himself in a motel room trying to figure out how to get a camera to be steady,” said William Forbes, one of the film’s producers. After creating a multitude of prototypes, Brown finally landed on something special.
And that’s how the Steadicam was born.
One of the earliest Steadicam shots is a demo reel of Brown’s wife, Ellen Shire, running up and down the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which convinced Rocky filmmaker, John G. Avildsen, to use Brown’s new contraption. The Shining followed, and Brown’s career got its jump start.
Garrett Brown filming the hedge maze chase scene in “The Shining” (1980).Courtesy of Garrett Brown
The Steadicam stabilizes a shot through three main components: the vest, the arm, and the sled. The vest is what the camera operator wears and the arm is what is attached to the vest. It allows the operator to move the camera around. The camera sits atop the pole-like “sled” and all of these come together to absorb the shock as the camera operator runs.
“Everyone we talk to echoes the same sentiment, which is that there’s a before-Steadicam and an after-Steadicam when it comes to filmmaking and sports broadcasting,” said Forbes. “You can see the imprint of [Brown’s inventions] on all these new technologies that come out, from legacy movies like Avatar or smaller things like the GoPro, and all these little things that people are trying to be able to have new visual language in film.”
Brown has patented several key camera systems that have been revolutionary in the world of sports broadcasting. The SkyCam, for example, shoots football games from above; the DiveCam tracks divers; and the MobyCam tracks Olympic swimmers underwater as they move across the pool.
Michael Phelps, Forbes said, wouldn’t have won his gold medals if it weren’t for the MobyCam. The camera tracking “was able to show his fingertips touching just before another guy, which gave him his eight gold medals,” referring to Phelps’ historic sweep at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Brown founded the Steadicam Operators Association in 1988, through which he and other camera operators teach workshops on using the machinery, working with new operators, and finding ways to alter the technology.
More than 50 years after introducing the Steadicam, Brown is still not done tinkering with it.
Garrett Brown being interviewed for “Thank You, Mr. Brown.”Courtesy of EBE Productions
“We’ve made incredible movies that we tell each other on screen even through sports that we watch,” said Schwartz. “Garrett very much brought us closer to communicating that way with the tools he made.”
A lot of Brown’s story, he said, “is one thing to the next and an evolution that was somewhat accidental at times because he was just going on an adventure. I hope people are inspired by his story as much as they are educated by it.”
A release date for Thank You, Mr. Brown is yet to be announced.
Cirque du Soleil‘s popularity is as high as an acrobat’s leap through a suspended hula hoop. And the world’s largest circus company is getting ready to land on its feet in Philadelphia again.
After dazzling Greater Philadelphia Expo Center audiences with Luzia’s elemental wonder earlier this summer, the entertainment group is coming back with a holiday-themed production.
Cirque du Soleil’s “Twas the Night Before…” is coming to the Met Philadelphia in December. The show will feature aerial strap duos, hoop diving, roller skating, and other performances.Courtesy of Benoit Z. Leroux
Inspired by the classic 1823 poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” the acrobatic tale follows a young girl who rediscovers the magic of the holiday season. The poem, largely attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, is believed to have inspired the very concept of Santa Claus.
It’s thought that Moore was struck with inspiration while he rode a sleigh on a shopping trip around 1823, the year the poem was published anonymously. He later claimed authorship in 1837.
Come December, the Met Philadelphia stage will transform into a winter wonderland, filled with high-flying aerial strap duos, hoop diving, roller skating, soaring hair suspension, and high-energy dancers across more than 10 acts.
Twenty-six artists will perform to a soundtrack of reimagined Christmas classics and original songs, composed by musical director Jean-Phi Goncalves.
Cirque du Soleil’s “Twas the Night Before…” is coming to the Met Philadelphia in December.Courtesy of Kyle Flubacker
The 85-minute showis the company’s first Christmas show since its founding in 1984. Twas the Night Before … premiered in Chicago in 2019 and played in Philadelphia in 2024.
Tickets to the productionare available online for Cirque Club members beginning at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Cirque Club membership is free, and benefits include access to advance tickets and other special offers. LiveNation All-Access Presale begins at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
General tickets are available starting at 10 a.m. Friday.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit themetphilly.com.
Vashti DuBois has removed all of the art from the first floor of the Colored Girls Museum. Its forest green and sunshine yellow walls now lay bare.
The living room couches, settees, dining room set, and bookcases are in storage. Hundreds of books have been boxed up and the ceramic vessels tucked away.
DuBois, TCGM’s founder and executive director, hired contractors to paint the Germantown museum’s galleries eggshell black and cover the hardwood floors with black carpet. Black curtains hang over the windows.
These changes were all made at the behest of renowned artist vanessa german. Her new show, “The House, The Oracle and the Table,” a sparkling three-piece exhibit and theatrical presentation in honor of the Colored Girls Museum’s 10th birthday,was unveiled June 20.
“The House,” the central character in “The House, The Oracle and The Table” by vanessa german, stands in the Colored Girls Museum’s living room gallery. The show runs through Dec. 30. Zamani Feelings
“The House, The Oracle and The Table” is comprised of three pieces. The House, a 7-foot towering talisman; The Oracle, a gem-studded bust; and The Table, an inviting drop-leaf surface with crystal-filled hand carvings. The show is german’s offering to the museum and DuBois.
“She’s one of a few artists I’d even dream of stripping the museum bare for,” DuBois said. “I released the old and I have so much more to show for it.”
‘Here the work is kinfolk’
A poet, spoken word artist, and self-taught sculptor, german is among the country’s most important contemporary artists of the moment.
Her work revels in the dynamism of the Black femme, reminding women that it’s OK to take up space with sequins — and lots of them. She’s best known for her “power figures,“ larger-than-life sculptures of Black women as sparkling, glittering, and magnificent spiritual and magical beings.
Her power figures and altars are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art. In 2021, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts acquired german’s Declaration of Independence altar. The 17-foot-long piece rejects the idea that Black women — specifically Prissy in Gone With the Wind — should be relegated to subservient roles.
German’s iconic Miracles and Glory Abound is presently on display at Doylestown’s Michener Art Museum as the centerpiece of its exhibit celebrating America’s 250th, “The Crossing: Picturing the American Revolution.”Miracles is a recreation of Emanuel Leutze’s famous 1851 oil painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. But in german’s sculpture, which features a life-size boat made from found objects, Washington and his soldiers are Black women.
“The Table” and “The Oracle” are two of the characters in vanessa german’s show, “The House, The Oracle and The Table.”Zamani Feelings
“Her work allows Black women and Black queer women to take up space in a way we just can’t ignore,” said Laura Igoe, Michener’s Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest chief curator. “She’s creating a different awareness, imagining a new future, and creating a new narrative.”
It’s rare that an artist of german’s caliber creates a site-specific installation for a small community museum like TCGM, let alone makes the museum’s founder central to the show. This makes “The House, The Oracle and The Table” a big deal in local and national arts circles. TCGM is also of the community that inspires german’s art. Here, german’s work is not a spectacle or a teaching moment. It’s an understood and welcome family member.
“Here the work is kinfolk,” DuBois said.
Prayer pouches and healing monuments
The House, a 7-foot-tall, three-headed sorceress — the personification of past, present, and future — stands in the center of the living room gallery turned black-box theater, alone under a labyrinth of Edison lights. Each woman has a head of flowing locks and lips of cowrie shells. Each face — carved from plaster, epoxy resin, and wood glue and treated with a metallic finish — is slightly different from the one next to it.
Artist vanessa german stands next to “The House,” one character in her three-piece show, “The House, The Oracle and The Table.” The three-headed sorceress resembles the Colored Girls Museum’s founder and executive director, Vashti DuBois.Zamani Feelings
They all resemble DuBois’ face.
“What’s really tender is that vanessa wasn’t afraid to see me: my past, my present, and my future,” DuBois said. “She didn’t look away. She installed the founder and executive director in this show.”
The House wears an oceanic blue dress fashioned from found objects like bottles, baby shoes, vases, and carafes. DuBois has a few items nestled in including a tea cup of her own, a carafe, and a 19th-century doll. Eventually The House will move on and when it does, it will have DuBois’ energy embedded in it.
Hundreds of quilted prayer pouches are sewn into the floor-length frock. German makes these building blocks of her assemblages by hand.
Making the pouches is monotonous work. She cuts each one out, sews it together, and fills it with beads and intention, before stitching it together. This work she said, redirects her energy from sadness, depression, and suicidal thoughts to purpose, forgiveness, and healing.
“It kept me from myself,” said german, who was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of the late quilter and fiber artist Sandra German. Her adolescence and early adulthood were filled with creative energy, but also melancholy.
The prayer pouches helped kick off her art career in the 2000s while she lived in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood. She began to build structures made of found objects and prayer bags. They grew so big she began leaving them outside, attracting neighborhood children.
Artist vanessa german, during her theatrical performance.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
ArtHouse, her community art space, was born and german began calling herself a citizen artist.
“My body went on autopilot,” said german, who now lives in Asheville, N.C. She spent a few days in June at TCGM building The House’s dress and body from pieces she’d already assembled.
“My hands would just do it and as my body repeated the task,” she said about the pouches, “I was able to make sense of things for myself. I began to heal.”
Kindred spirits
In the TCGM dining room are the exhibit’s two other pieces: The Oracle, a roughly 40-pound bust of a seer whose face is entirely made from crystals: clear quartz, turquoise, and rose quartz. Its ear, a found teapot pouring liquid gold.
Abundance.
“She is the soul of the house,” german said. “Her cup runs over.”
The Oracle sits atop The Table, whose dropped leaf features carved hand prints filled with lapis lazuli and rose quartz. The carvings represent women in the TCGM community.
Founder and executive director of the Colored Girls Museum, Vashti DuBois, watches as vanessa german blesses “The House, The Oracle and The Table” on opening night.Zamani Feelings
“In that moment I knew we were kindred spirits,” DuBois said. “I didn’t ask her to do anything new. I would have been happy to have a loan from her.”
That was out of the question for german, who said she had no intention of “phoning in the project.”
“I wanted to take my time, I did not want to be frivolous with this gift … this opportunity,” german said.
‘This house is holy’
German took the energy of all the things DuBois couldn’t say and infused it in her work.
TCGM’s inception followed the unexpected death of DuBois’ husband, Al Stewart, in 2013. She opened TCGM in 2016 to celebrate the lives of ordinary Black women. Along the way, she healed.
In the last 10 years, DuBois has stewarded the museum through more than a dozen shows and won awards and major grants. A tangle with the city of Philadelphia forced her to move out of her home in order to keep the museum open. So she moved out of the place, where for over 20 years, she raised her children and lived with her late husband.
“There is exquisite pain and exquisite beauty here,” DuBois said.
“The House” is the central character in vanessa german’s “The House, The Oracle and The Table.” German curated the show in honor of the Colored Girls Museum’s 10th birthday as an offering to the museum and its founder and executive director, Vashti DuBois.Zamani Feelings
Hours before the summer solstice on the third Saturday in June, german blessed “The House, The Oracle and The Table” in five separate performances, moving from gallery to gallery like a calm blue wave.
She prayed. she chanted. She sang. And many watched. Some even cried.
“This show will awaken something in people,” german said. “They will start to say things out loud they once held inside and know to be true.”
DuBois can testify to that.
“I turned myself inside out getting ready for the show,” she said. “I’ve always known that I am holy and this house is holy. Now I can say it.”
Paris natives Alex Durand and Tom Carles met as 12-year-olds in the Parisian suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, sharing a love for playing soccer. In 2016, as teenagers, they attended soccer camp at Eastern University in Delaware County, marking their first trip to the U.S. together.
Two years later, they moved back to the U.S. after earning scholarships to play college soccer — Durand at Malone University in Ohio and Carles at Mississippi College. But that dream was put on pause when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. Unable to travel back to Paris, they moved to South Carolina and started making social media content about their experience of being Parisians living in America.
They first went viral on TikTok for their series trying to pronounce English words.
Durand, 25, and Carles, 26, are the creators behind the Instagram account AT Frenchies. With more than 2 million followers, their pandemic pastime has become a hub for learning French.
Over the years, the pair have traveled to California, Louisiana, South Carolina, and New York.
Then, they came to Philadelphia. It was unlike any other stop.
Alex Durand (left) and Tom Carles pose in front of a Jalen Hurts mural outside of Puglia Pizza on South Street.AT Frenchies
“We think most people don’t actually know how great Philly is,” said Carles. “When we came, we didn’t know much about Philly. We just had some friends living there saying it’s the best city, but we had no idea because nobody else talks about it.”
The pair partnered with the French national soccer team this year and has been following them on its World Cup journey. The June 22 France-Iraq match brought the City of Love natives to the City of Brotherly Love, so they could watch some soccer and make their usual content around visiting an American city.
Then, Philly happened to them: from cheesesteaks to water ice to being unable to stop saying “Go Birds!” or, as they pronounce it, “Gwo Beards!” or, as they write it, “Geaux Birds!”
The pair posted reels guessing the meaning behind Philly slang and celebrating French wins with the crowds in the city. Their most-viewed reel from their trip is titled “POV: Us after spending 24 hours in Philly,” in which Carles referenced Philly slang like “jawn” and “jeet,” with Durand interjecting with frequent “Go Birds!”
“I proclaim y’all as official Philly citizens,” a comment reads. “This jawn nails it. Y’all get it. You’re officially locals now,” reads another uncharacteristically positive Philadelphian’s reply.
The two stayed in Philly for about 10 days, attending France’s games against Iraq and Paraguay on June 22 and July 4, respectively. In that time, they checked out the Rodin Museum, City Hall, Reading Terminal Market, Stateside Live!, Independence Hall, the Rocky statue, and even found their way to Philly’s crown jewel: Wawa.
“Wawa is the absolute best brunch place on earth. I think we’ve tried every single thing on the menu,” said Durand, whose order is a chicken wrap and an iced latte with caramel drizzle. Carles opts for a mini hoagie with chicken and bacon.
The pair even admitted to preferring the chain to the French convenience store equivalent, Franprix.
“[Reading Terminal Market] was a little part of the city that you don’t see that often in other cities,” said Carles, who lives in New Orleans. “You can have any type of food and everybody’s so nice and wants you to try some food here and there. It’s a nice atmosphere, and you have people around that always smile and are super nice, but also if they have a bad day, they don’t hide it. It’s very brutal and honest.”
Alex Durand (left) and Tom Carles stand outside Reading Terminal Market in Center City, Philadelphia.AT Frenchies
Philadelphia’s unpolished authenticity is what made the pair fall in love with the city, they said.
“People in Philly didn’t feel like they were trying too hard to impress people,” said Durand. “I live in LA and people care so much about the outside perspective of how they look and behave. But in Philly, it’s the Philly way or no way, and we loved it.”
After France beat Paraguay 1-0 and the duo headed out of Philadelphia, they posted a heartfelt thank-you message to Philadelphians on their Instagram, something they had never done for any other American city.
“Every bar we walked into during the games, every person who smiled at us wearing our jersey, every random ‘allez les bleus’ from someone we’d never met, it added up to something we didn’t expect to feel this strongly,” the post read.
“We felt like we needed to say something because we had such a good time that we wanted to thank the city for having us,” Carles said. “We wanted to show our appreciation for everything that we’ve seen of the city.”
Comments begged them to come back for an Eagles game. The Sixers official account commented, “we gotta get you back for a basketball game.”
“Stay the same,” Durand said. “Stay proud of your city. You have every reason to be proud of where you’re from.”
When they’re not following their national soccer team around and singing praises to hoagies, the two use AT Frenchies, whose social media accounts have more than 6 million followers combined, as an online center to teach French.
“We do [French classes] three or four times a week, on Zoom and in-person, and we also have teachers with us,” Carles said. The AT Frenchies French club is 3 years old and has 500 members from over 60 countries.
“It’s something that has made us super happy because we’re able to give back to our followers who want to learn French,” Carles said. “It’s been one of the most rewarding things that we’ve done in our business side of AT Frenchies.”
Alex Durand (center right) and Tom Carles (far right) pose with Alex Holley (far left) and Mike Jerrick, hosts of Fox 29’s “Good Day Philadelphia,” after filming an interview with them.AT Frenchies
Philadelphia’s World Cup journey is over, but it’s certainly not the last Philly sees of Durand and Carles.
They plan to return when they tour for their upcoming book Pardon Our French, which releases Sept. 8 from Penguin Life Press. It’s a guide to embracing a minimalist, do-what-you-love Parisian lifestyle — one they think Philadelphians have already mastered.
“In Philly, you don’t really hear French but it feels French,” said Carles. “[The French mindset] is more about doing whatever makes you happy without thinking about what other people think, and that’s what Philly’s all about.”
“We were going to do one date in Philly, but now I want to try to do more than one,” Durand said. “We’ve been living in the U.S. since 2018, and no other city has made us feel this way. It’s incredible how much people have impacted our lives in 10 days.”
Their to-do for when they return? Go to an Eagles game. And a Sixers game … and maybe even a Flyers game if they can find a way to do a three-way collaboration with all the teams.
“In Paris, when [Paris-Saint Germain FC] plays, everybody’s on the streets. We’re very passionate about our teams. Tom and I have traveled to almost every big city in America, and in every city people are passionate about sports, but here?” Durand said rhetorically with an added gasp for dramatic effect.
He has even set himself a goal for his next visit: “To make Saquon Barkley pronounce ‘Go Birds!’ in the Frenchest way possible.”
Philadelphia has beenflush with tourists flocking here for the World Cup and the nation’s 250th, patronizing local restaurants, bars, and stadiums.
And in the aftermath, bar owners are weighing the exact size of any World Cup sales boom, how it compares to an Eagles’ Super Bowl run, and whether Philadelphia truly is a 4 a.m. bar town as the state allowed some establishments to stay open later.
One thing is clear: If the bar had TVs playing World Cup games, it had a chance at cashing in on fans eager to experience the game with others.
Sports bars and tourism hot spots made out well
Jason Evenchik’s Garage bars in Fishtown, Passyunk, and Rittenhouse saw “a nice bump in sales” throughout the World Cup, driving business up 30% to 40%, he said. Evenchik said the TV bars fared better than usual during what’s typically a summertime lull — and much better than when World Cup games were being broadcast from Qatar in 2022.
Lucy’s Rittenhouse, a sports bar from FCM Hospitality’s Avram Hornik, also did well during the afternoon and evening games, especially when Team USA played, Hornik said. And it attracted patrons during its 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. shift, thanks to a Philadelphia 250 Permit, a temporary license that allows eligible bars to serve alcohol two hours past the city’s usual 2 a.m. closing time.
“I don’t think it could have gone better,” Hornik said. FCM also operates the Center City nightclub Concourse, the family-friendly taproom Craft Hall, and riverside deck Morgan’s Pier, among other bars.
“It was a mix of tourists. A lot of South Americans stayed out later because they’re used to places open late. Europeans we found like to camp out at a bar and stay for a while. There was also just a lot of Philadelphians who were happy to have some place to go and experience this moment,” Hornik said.
Even bars without TVs like the decades-old Fergie’s Pub, nestled smack dab in Center City’s bar scene, saw a tourism boom, said owner Fergie Carey, attracting tourists to its authentic Irish experience. Carey evendecided to open for the Fourth of July, when the bar usually closes, because there was so much foot traffic. But having no TVs can have repercussions.
“The most people I’ve ever seen leave our pub because there are no TVs was on the Fourth of July,” Carey quipped.
Evenchik and Hornik also saw lower engagement at some of their bars with little to no TVs or sports vibe, such as Evenchik’s Vintage wine bar, which he said suffered a 30% decline in sales during World Cup weeks. Hornik’s neighborhood restaurant and bars like Rosy’s Taco Bar or Harper’s Garden didn’t necessarily take a sales hit, but their private dinner party business “almost disappeared during the time of World Cup,” he said.
Fans react to the Eagles play the Chiefs in the NFL Super Bowl LIX, in a bar near Frankford and Cottman Aves., Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025, in Philadelphia.Tyger Willliams / Staff Photographer
The World Cup pales in comparison to a Super Bowl at Philly bars
While the sports bars and hotter tourism areas saw a World Cup sales bump, bar owners say it was nothing compared to the revenue brought in from the Eagles going on a playoff-to-Super Bowl run, or the Phillies in the World Series.
“I don’t think there’s anything that compares to Philly sports fans and their loyalty to our Philadelphia teams when they do well,” Hornik said.
When a Philly sports team is doing well, Evenchik said, people seem more willing to go out and celebrate on the town.
“In those times we see a bump in the sports bars, but also everywhere else, including restaurants, because everyone’s so joyous,” Evenchik said. “The World Cup doesn’t really get close to the Super Bowl madness.”
At Philly’s oldest craft and woman-owned brewery, Dock Street, bartender Jessica Head and assistant general manager Abby Stover said they’ve been relishing the fervor of World Cup fans for every game, regardless of who is playing.
“The World Cup finals are truly similar to us Philadelphia sports fans in their passion and how much they are willing to ride for their teams, but nothing can beat a good Eagles playoff run,” Stover said.
“With an Eagles playoff run, we get the bursts during the games once a week, and the energy is undeniable. But the World Cup is really something so special,” Head said. “We’re so lucky we get to see that excitement every single day during the tournament.”
Fans watch a Team USA match at the Fishtown sports bar, Garage, during the 2026 World Cup.(Courtesy of Jason Evenchik)
4 a.m. bars in Philly aren’t as popular as believed
Hornik applied for the Philadelphia 250 Permit at several of his bars.
But only Lucy’s really enjoyed the benefits of 4 a.m. closing times. FCM’s other nightlife-oriented locations generally didn’t take advantage of their permits, Hornik said.
While Hornik found success at Lucy’s, others have said the 4 a.m. party culture in Philadelphia just didn’t materialize.
“I’ve spoken to a couple people who are involved in some of the bars that had a 4 a.m. license, and everyone kind of universally agreed that it cost a bit more than it was worth,” Evenchik said.
The permit itself cost $500 to apply for, and another $250 for safety training from the city.
Additionally, only a handful of the 104 World Cup matches were broadcast close to times near Philadelphia’s usual 2 a.m. closing time. “It didn’t really make sense because none of the games were really that late,” Evenchik said.
World Cup fans share pizza and beer while watching matches at Dock Street South on Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia during the 2026 World Cup.(Courtesy of Renata Vesey)
What lasts is the cultural exchange
Neighborhood bars largely didn’t see a boom like Center City and established sports bars, but the World Cup did bring more business and, occasionally, international tourists, said Renata Vesey, creative director at Dock Street, which operates a brewery along Washington Avenue and a taproom in Fishtown.
“When Côte d’Ivoire played, we got a big crew of Ivorians of all ages,” Vesey said. “It happened to be on a Sunday that we were also hosting a line-dancing event, so it was just such a random, cool mix of people and interests and vibes.”
Bars were livelier and more crowded than usual, and Dock Street opened for a few games on Mondays, when it is normally closed,she said.
Hornik’s neighborhood bars and restaurants like Rosy’s continued to draw their usual crowds as well. But what stands out to him is the role that Philadelphia bars and restaurants played in making the city one of the more memorable places to watch the World Cup, he said.
“It’s not just our job to entertain them for one night, but to make them want to come back here,” Hornik said. “I think that Philadelphia did a great job of showing how great a city Philadelphia is.”
The attendance record was previously held by German comedian Mario Barth, who performed for 67,733 people in 2008, according to Guinness’ database.
The show was billed as the largest headliner of Gillis’ career and featured special guests, like fellow comedian Dave Chappelle and hip-hop group Three 6 Mafia, as well as Philadelphia icons rapper Meek Mill and Eagles Jordan Mailata and Jason Kelce.
This was somewhat of a homecoming for Gillis, who graduated from West Chester University and cut his teeth in Philly’s comedy scene. He was announced as a Saturday Night Live cast member in 2019 but was fired days later, before the season premiere, for having made homophobic and racist jokes on his podcast.
