The Folsom Street Fair brought hundreds of thousands of people to San Francisco on Sunday, September 27, 2026, celebrating kink, leather, and fetish culture across the South of Market neighborhood. The 43rd annual gathering marked the conclusion of the city’s Leather Week and Leather Pride season, occupying a 16-block footprint along Folsom Street between 7th and 13th streets.
Widely recognized as the largest kink, leather, and BDSM event in the world, the festival transformed the district into an open-air community space from 11:00 to 18:00 local time. In an official statement, the organizers described the mission of the gathering: “This is a celebration AND it’s a resistance. Against shame. Against erasure. Against every force that has ever told us to hide who we are, tone it down, or stay in line. We’re here because we refused.”
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Key logistics and data for the Folsom Street Fair
- Date and time: Sunday, September 27, 2026, from 11:00 to 18:00 Pacific Time
- Location: Folsom Street between 7th and 13th streets, South of Market (SoMa), San Francisco, California
- Scale: 16 city blocks occupied by seven community stages and more than 200 vendors and exhibitors
- Edition: 43rd annual event held since its inception in 1984
Performances and community stages across SoMa
The outdoor gathering featured seven community stages presenting a wide spectrum of entertainment, including live DJ sets, pole dancing demonstrations, bondage workshops, queer wrestling exhibitions, and drag performances organized by historic gay bar The Stud. Alongside the live acts, more than 200 independent vendors and exhibitors offered specialized merchandise such as custom leather apparel, chains, body harnesses, whips, jewelry, and educational kink publications across the closed streets.
Participants traveled from across the United States to take part in the fair. Jules Gladwell, who flew in from Columbus, Ohio, attended the event for the first time wearing a pale pink harness. “I’m a very sex-positive person, and this is about as sex-positive as you can get. I’m taking a moment to bask in the kinky queerness. I feel very safe here,” Gladwell said.
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Longtime locals observed how the gathering has evolved over the decades. Tommy Netzband, a San Francisco resident for 30 years, noted that mainstream awareness of alternative sexualities has broadened the event’s demographics: “It’s gotten a lot more straight people over the years … with BDSM becoming so mainstream. I don’t mind. As a city we want to be inclusive. This is one of those fairs where you can truly be yourself and not feel guilty about it.”
Origins of the festival in the South of Market district
The Folsom Street Fair originated on Sunday, September 23, 1984, under the name Megahood, created by community activists Kathleen Connell and Michael Valerio. At the time, the founders established the street gathering as a direct act of grassroots resistance against urban redevelopment and the demolition of gay bars, bathhouses, and leather venues driven by real estate projects in South of Market. The inaugural fair also functioned as a mutual aid response and communal gathering during the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which severely affected the local population.
Over the decades, San Francisco designated the neighborhood as the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District to help safeguard the area’s social history and historical landmarks. Even with municipal protections, key spaces faced closure under commercial pressures, including the adult venue Blow Buddies, which operated from 1988 until it shut its doors in 2020. The Stud, considered the city’s oldest gay bar, closed its original premises in 2020 before reopening directly on Folsom Street in 2024.
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Milestones of the Folsom Street gathering
- September 23, 1984 — Activists Kathleen Connell and Michael Valerio stage the first edition, originally called Megahood, to defend SoMa venues against redevelopment
- 2020 — Adult venue Blow Buddies closes after 32 years of operation, and historic bar The Stud vacates its longtime home
- 2024 — The Stud reopens at a new permanent location situated on Folsom Street
- September 27, 2026 — The 43rd edition of the Folsom Street Fair occupies 16 blocks across San Francisco
Discrepancies in attendance estimates for the 2026 gathering
Published reports reflect differing crowd estimates for the 2026 gathering, as municipal authorities in San Francisco do not issue an official crowd census for permitted street fairs. Prior to the event, organizers shared an expectation of approximately 225,000 visitors with the regional outlet SFGATE. Meanwhile, representatives of the organization indicated to the San Francisco Chronicle that total turnout could reach up to 400,000 participants over the course of the day, drawing visitors from across California, the United States, and abroad.
The city’s transport agencies completed the reopening of Folsom Street to standard vehicle traffic following cleanup operations on Sunday night.
