It’s the first ‘Everything’s happening this weekend’ weekend in years, with Folsom Street Fair, the Portola festival, a Cat Extravaganza, and that’s just scratching the surface.
SFist used to write an article pretty much every year in early autumn called Everything's Happening This Weekend to basically inform you that Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and Fleet Week were happening on the same weekend. Well, now that the COVID-19 mess is in the “Low tier” in the Bay Area, we are back on our bullshit — and it’s not even that weekend! Next weekend will be a whole other event-pocalypse/-palooza, but for this festival-, party-, and fair-packed weekend, here is your roundup of happenings and street closures.
Reminder: The IB 21 will have a minor reroute all day today near Civic Center due to tonight's Symphony Opening Night Gala. For service details: https://t.co/BZ1h1u0bht pic.twitter.com/OKD0HHkPSB
— SFMTA (@SFMTA_Muni) September 23, 2022
The closures and bus reroutes are already underway, ‘cause you’ve also got the SF Symphony Opening Night Gala Friday night. A couple blocks of Grove Street are already closed, and as seen above, the 21 Hayes has a slight reroute happening near Davies Hall.
HeadsUp: The Folsom Street Fair is this Sunday in SoMa from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The 9, 12, 27, and 90 will have reroutes. For complete service details: https://t.co/9SBUCHRjq1 pic.twitter.com/ZytUTNLo6W
— SFMTA (@SFMTA_Muni) September 23, 2022
The Folsom Street Fair will of course be showing its ass again Sunday, and as we noted this morning, they’ll be providing free MPX vaccine doses. But the event may be a pain in the ass for drivers and transit rides, with reroutes galore and plenty of street closures around Folsom Street and between Eighth and 12th Streets.
Also, with the fair comes a whole lot of LGTBQ tourists, and a weekend of parties for various subsets and fetishists.
Portola and the kink festival happening this weekend. SF about to SF like it’s never SF’d before.
— UZO. (@dubonde_wav) September 22, 2022
That new EDM festival called Portola is also this weekend down Pier 80 way (at the eastern end of Cesar Chavez Street). You have some standard ‘what to see and eat’ previews available on SFGate and SF Standard. There is no parking at Pier 80, but there will be shuttles from the Balboa Park BART station and the Cow Palace parking lot.
And Cow Place might be quite the hairball, because in addition to those shuttles, the San Francisco Cat Extravaganza will also be at the Cow Palace (and co-hosted by Heklina? Apparently so!). It is indeed a regular cat show, though with some comedy and conversations on feline topics, starting Friday night and going through Sunday.
HeadsUp: @SFCB's Roadworks Steamroller Printing Festival is this Sunday in Potrero Hill from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The OB 19 will have a minor reroute. For service details: https://t.co/PXagH8wOUT pic.twitter.com/RieTIPhAOC
— SFMTA (@SFMTA_Muni) September 23, 2022
Meanwhile in Potrero Hill, something called the Roadworks Steamroller Printing Festival will be printing books with an actual steamroller on Sunday. A block of Rhode Island Street will be closed between 16th and 17th Streets, and the 19 Polk will be somewhat rerouted in the area.
HeadsUp: The Cole Valley Street Fair is this Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The 6, 37, and 43 will have reroutes. For complete service details: https://t.co/p3ywxDQQXh pic.twitter.com/jSuYwwdg43
— SFMTA (@SFMTA_Muni) September 23, 2022
Lastly and probably most wholesomely, the Cole Valley Street Fair is Sunday, from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., on Cole Street between Frederick and Grattan Streets and Parnassus Avenue between Shrader and Belvedere Streets.
Next weekend is Castro Street Fair and the big Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, but as has been the case in recent years, Fleet Week’s primary weekend is the weekend after, October 7-9.
Related: How Weird Street Faire Returning for 2022, Set for October 15 [SFist]
Image: Beth Thomas via Hoodline