Families with children and hipsters alike have turned CUESA's perfectly innocent, annual Baby Goat Festival into a thing of viral intensity and long lines, and now in its eighth year, the event last year dubbed Goatchella will no doubt be mega-popular once more when it reoccurs on Saturday, April 16. Literally tens of thousands of people RSVP'd to the Facebook event last year, though it's unclear how many actually showed up — judging from the photographic evidence, there were plenty of goat fanatics and eager kids of both types, and reports were that the line to pet the baby goats stretched to two hours long within a half hour of opening. Thus, you now need to buy advance tickets to the fest ($0 to $5), and the goat petting will occur in assigned time-slot increments.

Per the Eventbrite page:

Petting time slots include a 5-minute period to line up before the petting, 8-minutes in the pen with the goats, and a 2-minute buffer period to transition between groups. Please show up on time with your printed ticket and time slot. Due to high demand, we cannot offer you a different time slot if you miss your allotted time frame.

As SF Weekly notes, the breeds on display will include Saanen, Nubian, Alpine, and La Mancha goats.

The fun happens next to the Ferry Building during the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market, and it benefits CUESA (Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture), the organizers of the market. And this will be 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on April 16, with the goat petting winding up at 1 p.m.

In addition to the goat petting pen, the event is also a chance to sample artisan goat cheeses and meet local goat ranchers and food crafters.

And it's a chance to make "here's lookin' at you, kid" jokes, and wear your playa-friendly Goatchella gear, like this guy below, from last year.