by Betty Wang

Something big is brewing for the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium around Labor Day weekend and the following week, from September 4 to September 10, and it officially still remains a mystery as to what exactly that is. The Chron is reporting that city agencies have all authorized it, while knowing very little as to specifically what their sign-offs are for. Those closest to the event, such as employees at Another Planet Entertainment (which controls the venue) have had to sign non-disclosure agreements. As SFist speculated yesterday, it could even be a big campaign announcement from the likes of Joe Biden, but it's all rumor at this point.

Muni has allowed for dozens of parking spaces and several traffic lanes to be closed off from around mid-August to mid-September, with a few sidewalks being blocked off with metal barriers as well, while the Planning Department has received a permit request from Bill Graham’s entertainment company to remove four large windows on the Grove Street side of the building, bubble wrap the gaps, and put up temporary signage. Hoodline did some digging through some Planning Department documents and found that these signs are star-shaped (though those could very well just be sketches of punctured windows).

The next official event at the venue is not until September 16th (a Zedd concert), and while the permit application states that a "trade show" run by “Adams and Associates” was to be held, a call to this North Bay-based event-supply company revealed a dead end, with a company representative claiming no ties to anything at Bill Graham.

There has also been extremely heavy security has been present throughout the ongoing installations.

While the event is shrouded in mystery, there are of course some viable rumors being stirred up. A tech-related event, like the iPhone 6S announcement for one, is a possibility, seeing as how September is usually the month that Apple reveals are made; a cursory Google search for “mysterious Bill Graham event” yields mostly Apple-related answers as well). Also, as mentioned, we haven’t forgotten about Vice President Joe Biden.

One thing we are fairly certain of, though, as the Chron reports:

“It’s some special event! It’s bigger than a goddamned concert, I can tell you that,” said a guard who declined to give her name.