Gorgeous weather welcomed the 40th Folsom Street Fair to South of Market Sunday, and the leather, furry, and fetish party whipped up a crowd of hundreds of thousands.
Sunday saw the 40th iteration of the only-in-San-Francisco leather, public nudity, and sex-acts-on-the-street festival Folsom Street Fair. And it was clearly the biggest, burliest Folsom Street Fair since the pandemic: after there had been no Folsom Street Fair in COVID-ravaged 2020, a pared-down 2021 event drew maybe 40,000 people, and according to the Chronicle, last year’s Folsom Street Fair had about 100,000 attendees.
There are not yet official crowd estimates for Sunday’s fetish festivities. But SFGate reported that "approximately 250,000 people were expected to attend the event,” and having walked the whole festival, SFist would say attendance was certainly in that neighborhood.
One could barely move a snail’s pace on a Folsom Street packed with more than 200 vendors booths selling fetish gear, whips, and of course poppers. Dore Alley itself was so packed that one could barely penetrate its perimeter.
The fair of course took up all of Folsom Street between Eighth and 13th streets, plus Ninth through 12th streets between Howard and Harrison streets, and all of the alleys and side streets in that area.
The new and popular Wrestling Stage by Full Queer drew an unbelievably large crowd, leg-locking tens of thousands of adoring fans with sexy big-time wrestling. Organizers also treated the crowd with a Go-Go Stage (some NSFW action from that stage at the ‘bottom’ of this post), while The Stud and Oaklash hosted a drag stage, The Eagle hosted a dance stage, amidst other stages with rope and BDSM play demos.
But police were chasing off the bacon-wrapped hot dog vendor carts, likely in a nod to the licensed and permitted food vendors operating within the event.
We will remind you that nudity is allowed at Folsom Street Fair, because it is a permitted event with that permission.
And below we’re including a couple of those PG-13, NSFW images, should you choose to scroll downward.
Related: Photos: Folsom Street Fair 2022 Draws Familiar Large Crowds and Uninhibited Displays [SFist]
Images: Joe Kukura, SFist
