This weekend, neighborhoods across San Francisco will be bustling with summer events to keep you busy and your wallet full. Whether you choose to chow down on delicious South Asian street food and dance the evening away at a night market Downtown, unleash your inner kid at the Hayes Valley Carnival or pick up some art books in Dogpatch, you can’t go wrong. Read on for this week’s picks for cost-free ways to spend your weekend in San Francisco.
1. SF Art Book Fair in Dogpatch
🗓️ Friday-Sunday | 11 a.m.-6 p.m. (Friday-Saturday), 11 a.m.-5 p.m. (Sunday)
📍 Minnesota Street Project
🔗 sfartbookfair.com
The San Francisco Art Book Fair will return for its sixth year at Minnesota Street Project this weekend. The event showcases a treasure trove of books, art, zines, catalogs and more from an expansive group of independent publishers, artists, designers and collectors. On top of the plethora of booths to shop at, there will also be talks, exhibitions and other special programming to check out.
2. Bastille on Belden in the Financial District
🗓️ Friday | 4:30-9:30 p.m
📍 Belden Place
🔗 downtownsf.org
Bastille Day, a national holiday in France, commemorates the day of the storming and fall of the country’s Bastille in Paris during the French Revolution. San Francisco hosts numerous Bastille Day celebrations, but perhaps the most iconic is a block party on Belden Place–an alley that serves as a hub for the city’s small but mighty French American population. Classic accordion music will set the mood, participating restaurants will have special promotions and there will be complimentary berets. C’est bon!
3. Bhangra & Beats Night Market in Downtown
🗓️ Friday | 5-10 p.m.
📍 Battery and Clay streets
🔗 bhangraandbeats.com
As part of ongoing efforts to breathe life back into San Francisco’s struggling Downtown, Bhangra and Beats Night Market returns for the second of three times this season. This street fair intertwines South Asian and Bay Area roots for a lively, joyous night of music, dancing and street food. Once your feet get tired from dancing, there will be a curated collection of local vendors whose booths you can peruse to round out the night.
4. Hayes Valley Carnival in Hayes Valley
🗓️ Saturday | Noon-4 p.m.
📍 Octavia and Hayes streets
🔗 eventbrite.com
Popcorn, funnel cakes and acrobats will be flying next to Patricia’s Green in Hayes Valley this Saturday during the neighborhood’s carnival, which is now in its second year. The highlights of the afternoon will be a performance from Circus Bella, a Bay Area contemporary circus troupe, followed by upbeat tunes from the Circus Bella All-Star Band at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. There will also be other live music, food and carnival games for a sun-soaked afternoon of silly fun.
5. 'Frisco Fresh' Urban Youth Arts Festival in Bernal Heights
🗓️ Saturday | 1-5 p.m.
📍 Precita Park
🔗 precitaeyes.org
With a special focus on younger attendees, this community event creates a sanctioned, safe space for the public to freely collaborate on large aerosol art pieces. In the largest iteration of the festival’s 27 years yet, nonprofit and organizer Precita Eyes will be constructing two 8-by-20-foot walls for designated youth organizations to spray-paint to their hearts’ content. There will be 10 other smaller-scale walls around the park for spray paint self-expression, too, in addition to a community wall for traditional brush painting.