What they’re calling “the nation’s largest holiday projection art festival” will turn the sides of downtown SF buildings into ice castles and gingerbread houses, as Let’s Glow SF returns for its fifth year this Friday night.
It’s now a five-year San Francisco holiday tradition that we light up the sides of downtown buildings in December with a dazzling projection mapping display called Let’s Glow SF. That razzle-dazzle returns Friday night, and continues nightly from December 5-14, as Let’s Glow SF blasts holiday cheer all over eight different SF buildings with colorful and eclectic holiday handiwork by 19 artists and visual design companies.
If you haven’t seen Let’s Glow since its first year here in 2021, the above video gives you a sense of the yuletide glee you can expect.
“The fifth annual Let’s Glow SF event will illuminate eight landmark sites with large-scale projection art and cement its status as a signature holiday tradition for the city,” the project’s host Downtown SF Partnership says in their announcement. “The city’s core will transform into a glowing canvas of art and light,with large-scale animated artworks by local and international artists projected onto participating buildings.”
Above we get a taste of some of the projections that will be on the Ferry Building. And we have to say, that gingerbread house looks pretty sweet.
The above map shows the where you’ll find these projections every night during the program’s run: the Ferry Building, the Transamerica Pyramid Center, the Pacific Exchange, Salesforce Tower, 101 California Street, the Hobart Building, the PG&E Substation in the East Cut, and Yerba Buena Lane at Market Street.
The holly-jolliness kicks off Friday night at the Ferry Building at 6 pm, with pre-event festivities before the ceremonial “flipping of the switch” at 7 pm. Once the display is up and blasting holiday cheer, there’s an After Glow event inside the Ferry Building with silent disco, hot toddies and Irish coffee, cookie decorating, holiday ornament crafting, and a drag queen Mrs. Claus.
Let’s Glow SF lights up on Friday, December 5 at 7pm, and continues nightly December 6-15 from 5:30 - 10 pm each evening.
Image: Downtown SF Partnership
