We're just making sure you're aware that the annual SoMa traffic clusterf**k known as Oracle OpenWorld — in which Oracle gets to shut down a whole block of Howard Street for the city's biggest yearly corporate-sponsored conference — kicked off Sunday and will continue all this week. The conference is happening a full month earlier than last year for some reason, and will thus overlap with the descent upon the city by thousands of kinky, leather-laden tourist for Folsom Street Fair, which happens Sunday and which is preceded by dozens of parties all over SoMa and elsewhere. So, that intersection of conference-goers and fetishists could make for some fun photo ops on Twitter!

(Back in 2012, Folsom Street Fair organizers actually opted to move the fair up a week to avoid conflicting with the conference, but this year maybe they figure the conventioneers are all clearing out on Sunday anyway?)

As a press release from last night has it, Oracle Executive Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison kicked things off with a keynote speech about "the world's most complete, open and integrated Cloud computing platform," and he came out swinging against main competitor in that space, Amazon Web Services.

The conference typically draws about 60,000 conventioneers to town who gobble up most of our available hotel rooms months in advance, and the week usually includes one high-profile music performance by a big-named hired act or two. This year's "Oracle Appreciation Event" will be on Wednesday night at AT&T Park and will feature sets by Gwen Stefani and Sting — so, if you're a fan, you'll want to find a conventioneer to buddy up to and snag a wristband from.

Heavy pedestrian traffic throughout the Moscone vicinity makes driving anywhere near it, for a multi-block radius, a challenge during daylight hours all of this week. Be warned, and don't naively expect that Ubers are going to be the best way in or out of SoMa anytime this week pre-8 p.m., or at all.

Public transit also gets disrupted by the event because of all the traffic rerouting needed to close Howard Street, so below are the Muni bus lines you can expect to be delayed or re-routed as a result.

  • 8AX Bayshore A Express
  • 8BX Bayshore B Express
  • 9 San Bruno
  • 9R San Bruno
  • 14 Mission
  • 14R Mission Rapid
  • 14X Mission Express
  • 21 Hayes
  • 30 Stockton
  • 41 Union
  • 45 Union/Stockton
  • 81X Caltrain Express