Folsom Street Fair is the queer Super Bowl where the pre-game is your douche routine, the halftime show is a flogging demo, and the after-party is…wherever you end up.
Founded in 1984 as a local street fair in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, it’s now grown into one of the largest leather and fetish gatherings in the world, drawing more than 250,000 people each year.
Folsom began as an act of resistance. In the early ‘80s, gentrification threatened to push working-class and queer communities out of SoMa, a neighborhood that had become the epicenter of San Francisco’s leather scene. The inaugural Folsom Street Fair was created to preserve queer space.
Soon it took on another purpose. Born in the mid-1980s at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis by community activist Michael Valerio, the fair quickly became a lifeline, raising funds for organizations providing care and resources to people living with HIV. That mission continues today: Folsom Street Events has donated more than $7 million to local nonprofits that support LGBTQ+ health, rights, and culture.
In recent years Folsom has gone global Folsom East was brought to New York City in 1997 and Folsom Europe popped up in Berlin in 2003. The latter has become Europe’s largest fetish event, drawing approximately 20,000 to 30,000 visitors annually.
While New York’s Folsom East has leaned into a more nightlife meets street party vibe. Berlin’s no-limits edition is notorious for being even more explicit (the Germans don’t play when it comes to fetish freedom).
If it’s your first time at San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair, expect the unexpected. The fair takes over 13 city blocks, and vendors sell everything from custom whips to electro-toys. Stages feature live music and erotic performances, and, of course, there’s lots of nudity. San Francisco technically bans public nudity, but Folsom gets a pass thanks to city permits.
You’ll see seasoned leather veterans who’ve been coming since the ‘80s alongside fresh-faced SF tech bros trying on their first pup hoods. That mix is part of what makes Folsom feel like a cultural crossroads: It’s tradition colliding with reinvention, a ritual that both honors the past and embraces the evolving language of queer sexuality.
