The 24th annual How Weird Street Faire returned to SoMa this weekend with attendees celebrating San Francisco’s eccentricity through dress and dance.
This year’s theme, “Time Travel: Stargate,” brought festivalgoers their most out-of-this-world costumes to enjoy electronic music on eight stages while a plethora of vendors sold wares ranging from food to jewelry.
Ersson Bartal, who goes by the stage name DJ Airsun, said they have attended How Weird on and off for the past 10 years. Bartal planned on checking out the Booty Mashup and Heavy Petting stages to connect with friends and those they hadn’t seen since last year’s How Weird.
“It’s uniqu, it’s colorful and people aren’t afraid to be themselves,” Bartal said. “This city has always encouraged self-expression and so it is nice to see it continue although it has gone through changes over time. You never know who you’ll run into out here.”
As they walked along Second Street shortly after the gates opened, Kelly Cuff and his girlfriend, Amber Clayton, were decked out in full denim outfits decorated with various psychedelic patches. The couple came to the event for Cuff’s birthday weekend and said it was their third time attending. But of San Francisco’s eccentricity is what has kept them coming back to How Weird.
“You can be as weird as you want,” he said, chuckling. “You could even come butt-ass naked and no one would care, I promise you that. It’s a wonderful, nice birthday present. I can come out here, hang out with everyone and see San Francisco do what it does best. Be as fucking weird as you want.”
A variety of artists also displayed their work inside How Weird’s Art Alley with some selling their works and other merchandise in the festival’s marketplace.
Organizers boast that How Weird is the longest-running electronic music festival on the West Coast since its inception in the late-1990s.