Pink Saturday is no more. The street party that has traditionally taken place the Saturday before the Pride parade, dubbed the Pink Party last year, will not happen this year, reports The Bay Area Reporter, making 2016 the first year since 1991 without the boisterous celebration gracing the Castro neighborhood.
Coordinated and run by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence since 1995, the group last year declined to continue organizing the event as incidents of violence and the growing need for security made it an increasingly costly not to mention an at times gay-unfriendly affair. Last year (you surely remember) the LGBT Community Center swooped in, renamed the event Pink Party (because the Sisters are holding onto the Pink Saturday name), and held it earlier in the day. The Center is unable to do so this year, Castro Supervisor Scott Wiener told the BAR, and no other organization has offered to deal with it either.
“They don’t have the staff and it’s not a core part of what they do,” Wiener said of the LGBT Community Center. “There’s no other community group that’s stepped up to do the Pink Party."
The Dyke March will still take place, notes the paper.
That streets will not officially be closed to traffic of course does not mean there won't be some sort of party, and it is reasonable to expect the police to be out in force in the Castro neighborhood on the evening of June 25 much as they were last year following the tame and unexcited daylight party that took the place of Pink Saturday. Wiener seems aware of this, telling BAR that the city is still expecting that "lots of people" will show up — city-sanction Pink Saturday or no.
The death of Pink Saturday is undoubtedly a blow to SF's Pride celebration, which seems every year to take one step closer to being a big rainbow-themed party for straight people. It seems unlikely that any other organization is going to swoop in to save this thing, though the Sisters could always decide to throw a Pink Saturday somewhere else, as they've already discussed doing. And, as most locals will say, that party became too much of a shitshow anyway.
Related: Castro Braces For Big Pink Saturday/Pride Weekend As Sisters Bow Out As Organizers