Folsom Street Fair  is the largest BDSM Event in the World.  It is held in San Francisco on the last Sunday in September, and has been held here for almost 25 years.  

The Fair brings together vendors, BDSM Afficianados and Practitioners, leather people of all orientations, genders, and the gender fluid, those who like to party, those who like to watch, and those who like to strut their stuff on the streets.  We even have bemused tourists wandering through wondering where they are.  Bands play, refreshments are sold, dancing, demos, spanking for charity, flogging for charity, nudity, public sex and wild costumes abound.   It's a huge, one day glorious party.  You can find almost any toy you want to buy, and some you've never imagined.  Only in San Francisco can you see uniformed officers chatting next to three men clad only in shoes who are eating hot dogs and drinking beer, and commenting on the latex clad pony girls and boys.  

The week leading up to Folsom Street is called Leather Week, and many of the local groups, stores, and organizations have events taking place that week.  The Folsom parties are among the biggest and most lavish of the year, though most are not open to the public.  The greatest public Folsom party is Folsom Fringe, held in San Jose, and put on by SM Odyssey.  This is three days of parties and classes, culminating in a bus trip to and from Folsom Fair (eliminating the need for parking and fighting traffic.   I recommend it highly.

Meanwhile, vendors like me, are getting up at the crack of dawn, driving huge loads of toys into the fair, putting up booth structures on the piece of street we've rented, and setting things out for your perusal when you arrive.  (Believe it or not, we are expected to get there about 7:30 am, and the fair doesn't officially open until 11:00 am).  At 6:00 the day ends, and the vendors have 45 minutes to get their things OFF THE STREET before the street sweepers clear all the reminders of the wild party that Folsom Street is.

Next year, I'm really going to try to get some photos of other things.  Unfortunately, you all are so nice about buying my toys, that I don't seem to get out of the booth.  

Here are the few photos of our site.  Click on them for a larger view.

The clearest view of our new booth.  And two pretty leathermen.  

Another view of our front and the crowd.  I blurred the faces of two people whom I know in this crowd.  If you happen to be in here, let me know and I can blur you, too.  Outing people is not my intent, though if you are on Folsom Street, it's pretty much as if you've given your permission for your photo to be taken.

Another view.  And mostly how thick the crowd was all day.  It's best to shop early.

Here are the bears, who were on display at the front of the booth.  An amazing number of people took photos of the bears.  I can't blame them, I did, too.

Funny to think these innocent bears were right next door to a group selling gay male porn.

This is my niece, Atheris, who is our main cashier for events.  She also makes the ribbon floggers and puppy paws.  You can see that our space was crammed full of fun things.

Another photos of Atheris and the inside of the booth.  (One booth is 10x10, which sounds like a lot until you put something in it.  We had two booths, 10x20, and it still wasn't enough to give anyone much room.)

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This is what our booth looked like in 2003, we had the same amount of space, but used two easy ups instead of the temporary garage structure we now have.