| Previous Next May |
Two of San Francisco's most popular visitor attractions offer FREE admission on the first Wednesday of every month.
Take advantage of Free Admission Wednesdays at:
San Francisco's most visited museums offer FREE admission on the first Tuesday of every month.
Take advantage of Free Museum Tuesdays at the city's most visited museums:
San Francisco City Guides offer free historical and architectural walking tours of San Francisco's most famous (or, in some cases, infamous) districts, as well as some of its more hidden neighborhoods.
Approximately 30 different walks are offered each month, year-round, rain or shine. Walkers meet at the place and time designated in the current tour schedule. No reservations are required.
Born from the remnants of the 1915 World's Fair (Panama-Pacific Exhibition) in San Francisco, Crissy Field became the site of some of the most daring innovations in the early history of aviation.
Explore Crissy Field and learn about its role in early aviation history on this easy, one-mile walk.
All Dance! All Free! All Week! Bay Area National Dance Week is an annual 10-day celebration of free public dance events that spans both sides of the bay.
The San Francisco Bay Area dance community, which has long been one of the largest and most active in the country, offers a huge roster of programs -- free classes, performances, rehearsals, lecture demonstrations, and studio open houses -- giving a wide-angle view of the many and varied styles of dance practiced in the region.
Ranging from established company programs to one-time events, Bay Area National Dance Week is an opportunity for dance-lovers and newcomers of all ages to take a grand tour of many movement styles, including ballet, modern, Argentine tango, classical Indian, jazz, hip hop, traditional hula, fire dance, samba, Chinese classical, belly dance, aerial dance, West African, contact improv, Scottish country, and more!
The festivities kick off with a conga-line through the streets of Downtown San Francisco, open to everyone!
On the last Sunday in April each year, Opening Day on the Bay is the official start of the San Francisco Bay boating season.
As many as 150 boats are expected to participate in 2008, sailing in parade formation along San Francisco's northern shoreline, from the shadows of the Golden Gate Bridge to Pier 39. Many boats will be decorated to match the parade's competition theme, which this year is based on the "Mother Goose" nursery rhymes. The parade is led by one of the City of San Francisco's popular fire boats, and includes both contemporary and classic boats, motor and sail powered.
Stake out a viewpoint at Crissy Field, Pier 39, or anywhere in between, and enjoy the show!
Priding itself as an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation for 51 years, the San Francisco International Film Festival is the longest running film festival in the Americas. With over 200 films and live events and more than 100 filmmakers in attendance each year, it's no wonder that the festival draws a crowd of more than 80,000 viewers annually.
The full festival line-up will be announced on April 1, and promise 11 exciting days of films, live performances, parties, and special guests. French filmmaker Catherine Breillat is in attendance to open the festival with her film The Last Mistress, which is an "erotic, funny, cruel, and supremely intelligent" period drama starring Asia Argento. Celebrated English director Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake) receives the festival's highest honor, the Film Society Directing Award on April 30, and conducts an onstage Q-and-A. Fans of the band The Pixies have reason to rejoice as Black Francis performs his original score to the silent, German horror film The Golem live, in a one-night-only event at the Castro Theatre on April 25.
The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco now offers free admission on the first Sunday of the month, replacing their "first free Tuesdays."
On May 4, the museum celebrates this switch with a day-long festival for the entire family featuring live music, artist demonstrations, dance workshops and performances, book readings, storytelling, hands-on activities for all ages, guided tours of the galleries, and more!
Celebrate the National Parks America Tour! Join Golden Gate National Parks staff and volunteers for a clean-up day and free tour on San Francisco's famous Alcatraz Island.
Choose from a variety of restoration and maintenance projects, including work in the historic gardens, prison cells, museum, sally port, and recreation yard. Tasks include weeding, pruning, planting, sweeping, raking, painting, washing, and polishing.
Volunteers must arrive no later than 8:30 a.m. to check-in and board the ferry, and must have a valid ID and signed personal release form (which can be downloaded from the Parks Conservancy website).
All volunteers will be provided with a complimentary breakfast and lunch, as well as have the opportunity to take the audio tour and explore the island after the workday. Help to preserve this national treasure and enjoy a great day on Alcatraz!
The National Parks America Tour is a volunteer-driven initiative designed to provide National Parks with manpower resources to complete important projects and engage communities in the National Park experience.
Take a moderate one-mile walk through San Francisco's Presidio and learn how the African-American “Buffalo Soldiers” contributed to our country’s rich history.
Bring a camera on this moderate, 1.5-mile scenic stroll through San Francisco's Presidio.
Learn how unusual geologic and weather conditions produced a unique ecosystem at the Presidio.
Reservations required; call (415) 561-4323.
Join a park ranger on this easy, guided walk through the Tennessee Hollow Watershed in the Presidio of San Francisco, and ramble through serpentine grasslands, and discovering native plants.
Reservations required; call (415) 561-4323.
Join a park ranger on a history walk through San Francisco's Presidio to learn about the Japanese-American soldiers trained on-site for intelligence work during WWII.
As these soldiers were sent to war, their families were moved to internment camps. Learn about this poignant irony on this easy half-mile walk.
Come remember those who gave their lives for their country at San Francisco's Presidio this Memorial Day.
Follow a parade led by the 91st Division Pipes and Drum Band to the nearby National Cemetery for a formal ceremony that includes a laying of wreaths, remarks, and a reading of the Gettysburg Address.
The ceremony will be followed by tours led by National Park Service rangers.
Mission Bazaar features more than 200 artisans exhibiting their uniquely designed creative products and accessories and over 20 hours of live performances by singers, musicians, circus and dance acts, performances artists, DJs, and much more.
Now in its fourth year, San Francisco's Asian Heritage Street Celebration is the largest gathering of Asian Pacific Americans in the nation, and invites everyone to come celebrate the diversity of the Bay Area's Asian Pacific community.
Held this year in San Francisco's Japantown, this free street fair features performances from Asian American artists and DJs, as well as martial arts demonstrations, Asian cuisine, a karaoke contest, arts and crafts, Anime screenings, and door prizes.
Come celebrate Japan's national holiday honoring children in San Francisco's Japantown!
Free and open to the public, the Children's Day Festival gives kids the opportunity to learn about Children's Day traditions and Japanese culture through fun games and activities.
This year's festival includes children's entertainment such as Japanese classical dance, taiko drumming, and Girls Day and Boys Day doll exhibits.
Kids can participate in educational and cultural activities such as fish catching, hands-on crafts including fish painting and origami paper folding, and an art contest.
Come celebrate the cultures and traditions of the Bay Area Latino community at San Francisco's annual Cinco de Mayo Festival!
Bring you picnic basket to this family-friendly, alcohol-free afternoon of music, dance, food, and children's activities in Dolores Park, located in the heart of the city's Mission District.
The festival features mariachi bands and musical performances by Latino artists Berta Olivia, the Mockingbirds (Los Cenzontles), Picante Futuro, and DJ Orlando Florida, and performances by dance troupes Xiuhcoatl Danza Azteca and San Francisco State University's La Raza Baile Folkorico.
For more than 20 years sea music enthusiasts have gathered at San Francisco's Hyde Street Pier on the historic tall ships C. A. Thayer and Balclutha to sing chanteys and other sea songs.
This free event, which takes place the first Saturday of every month, has garnered a loyal following, drawing 80 to 200 people monthly.
Come hear California history come alive with chanteys that describe the perils of San Francisco's "Barbary Coast," the dangers of rounding Cape Horn, cruel ship officers, the joys and curse of drink, and hopes for riches during the Gold Rush.
Be sure to bring a mug for complimentary apple cider!
Reservations required, call (415) 561-7171.
Now in its 97th year, the annual Bay to Breakers brings 65,000 runners, walkers, and zany costumed revelers to the streets of San Francisco for one of the world's biggest and wildest footraces.
While elite international runners compete for the cash and prizes during the 12K run, the vast majority are just there to have fun as costumed competitors.
The race begins on the Bay side of the city at Howard and Beale streets, and finishes at the breakers of Ocean Beach, on the west end of Golden Gate Park.
After the race, rendezvous at the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park for Footstock, a free post-race festival with an outdoor concert featuring music by The Last Goodnight, food and drink booths, a beer garden, a costume contest for race participants, and other fun and games.
San Francisco's How Weird Street Faire is a seven-block celebration of peace and collaboration, featuring nine stages of electronic music and performance art. Celebrating its ninth year, the event takes up residence at its new location on Howard Street.
Every year, the festival brings thousands of people in colorful costumes flocking to the streets of SOMA to dance to live electronica, downtempo, breaks, trance, house, techno, drum & bass, world beat, and other sounds.
Artists and collectives performing this year include Tantra, An-ten-nae.net, Muti Music, Raindance, Koinonea, Cyberset, Sunset, Om Records, and many more.
The festival also features food and vendors from around the world selling unique and creative wares, information from nonprofit organizations, and an exhibit of technology that fosters peace and sustainability.
This year, the festivities continue into the evening at various SOMA clubs, so plan to dance both the day and night away!
Organized by the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation, Film Night in the Park is the city's premiere outdoor film series. From May to October, films are presented on a giant outdoor screen in beautiful park settings throughout the Bay Area, including three locations in San Francisco.
On May 17, the series kicks off for the season with a screening of "The Wizard of Oz" at Dolores Park in the Mission District. Bring your blankets, lawn chairs, and picnic dinners for a truly Bay Area experience!
Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Carnaval San Francisco is one of the city's most spectacular traditions and California's largest annual multi-cultural celebration.
Each year on Memorial Day weekend, San Francisco's Mission district is transformed by Carnaval, a Latin celebration showcasing the very best of Latin American and Caribbean cultures and traditions with a diverse array of food, music, dance, and artistry.
This year's Carnaval theme, "Many Cultures – One Spirit," will be displayed proudly, with Caribbean contingents showcasing the music, art, and dance of the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad. Mexican Aztec performers, traditional African drummers, Polynesian dancers, Japanese drummers, giant puppets, and artists representing Guatemala, Honduras, Bolivia, and other countries flesh out the multi-cultural celebration.
Spanning eight blocks, Carnaval includes several event stages as well as the Grand Parade (on Sunday, May 25, beginning at 9:30 a.m.) featuring costumed dancers, fantastic floats, drummers, roller-skaters, stilt-walkers, and more.
This year's festival also includes a "Zona Verde" (Green Zone), a new section featuring an array of earth-friendly enjoyments to enrich mind, body, and soul. The area includes an eco/green educational space and marketplace, a Holistic Health Pavilion, featuring the Bay Area's best in alternative healing and organic health products, and global healing ceremonies, with performance groups representing folkloric healing rituals from around the world.
San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens Festival presents more than 100 music, theater, dance, cultural, and children's events, all reflecting the rich cultures and creativity of the Bay Area. Ongoing from May to October, the festival is held in the Yerba Buena Gardens in the city's SOMA district.
On May 3, the festival kicks off for the season with a double-bill performance of Rupa and the April Fishes and Brass Menazeri.
Rupa and the April Fishes mixes sounds from the Far East, Europe, Latin America, and the U.S., giving an unforgettable multilingual performance with songs in French, Spanish, English, Hindi, and Roma that range from raucous to romantic.
Brass Menazeri is the Bay Area's premier Balkan brass band, specializing in the high-energy, sometimes stretchy, always exciting music of Serbian Rom (Gypsy) brass bands, as well as the Greek/Macedonian border region.
On May 9, the festival presents a performance by The Larry Vuckovich Quartet.
Internationally-acclaimed jazz pianist Larry Vuckovich weaves an exciting mix of Afro-Cuban, Latin/Brazilian/tango/Roma (gypsy), world music, as well as funk and hard-swinging jazz. Larry is accompanied by drummer Chuck McPherson, Latin percussionist Hector Lugo, and bassist Buca Necak.
On May 10, the festival presents a double-bill performance of Los Vasallos del Sol and the Venezuelan Music Project.
With a repertoire that covers the coastal country’s history from its pre-Hispanic and African roots to today’s popular rhythms and dance forms, Los Vasallos del Sol delivers a high-energy performance with contagious beats that will have you jump to your feet and dance!
The Bay Area’s dynamic Venezuelan Music Project, led by Jackie Rago, combines indigenous-Venezuelan, West African and Spanish-European influences.
San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens Festival presents more than 100 music, theater, dance, cultural, and children's events, all reflecting the rich cultures and creativity of the Bay Area. Ongoing from May to October, the festival is held in the Yerba Buena Gardens in the city's SOMA district.
On May 17, the festival presents "Unbound Chinatown," a musical homage to Alice Fong Yu, the first Chinese American teacher hired by the San Francisco School District.
Composer/pianist Jon Jang's musical language re-contextualizes Chinese folk songs within a contemporary music framework, a metaphor for the changing face of Chinese America.
With his stellar ensemble, including saxophonist Francis Wong, trombonist/music director Wayne Wallace, and guest vocalist Min Xiao Fen, Jang paints musical portraits of Alice Fong Yu’s life as a community and political leader during the 1930s.
San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens Festival presents more than 100 music, theater, dance, cultural, and children's events, all reflecting the rich cultures and creativity of the Bay Area. Ongoing from May to October, the festival is held in the Yerba Buena Gardens in the city's SOMA district.
On May 24, the festival presents Gamelan Sekar Jaya, the Bay Area's acclaimed gamelan ensemble.
Presenting the driving rhythms and refined dances of Bali in this beautiful garden setting and led by one of Bali's most brilliant artists, I Dewa Ketut Alit Adnyana (guest music director), Sekar Jaya will feature two large percussion ensembles: the 25-player orchestra of bronze gongs, metallophones, and drums called a gamelan gong kebyar, and secondly, an ensemble of giant bamboo marimbas, called gamelan jegog.
The outdoor setup reflects the open-air settings used in traditional Balinese contexts, where groups often play within or in front of temple courtyards. The audience is welcome to view the performance from various perspectives, to enjoy the complex interlocking rhythms and virtuosic ensemble sensibility of Balinese gamelan and the myriad expressions and delicate movements of Balinese dance.
San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens Festival presents over 100 music, theater, dance, cultural, and children's events, all reflecting the rich cultures and creativity of the Bay Area. Ongoing from May to October, the festival is held in the Yerba Buena Gardens in the city's SOMA district.
On May 29, the festival presents The Mo'Rockin Project, as part of its Lunchtime Concerts series.
The Mo'Rockin Project is a brotherhood of kindred North African and jazz musicians, performing works handcrafted from traditional Moroccan melodies.
On May 1, see "Cradle Will Rock" (1999), which takes a kaleidoscopic look at the extraordinary events of 1930s America, bringing Depression-era New York City to vivid life. Starring John and Joan Cusack, Susan Sarandon, Bill Murray, and many more.
This month, the San Francisco Public Library presents a Thursday afternoon film series entitled "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" which showcases films about the American Great Depression.
On May 8, see "Gold Diggers of 1933" (1933), a Busby Berkeley musical fantasy about struggling performers in the early 1930s with Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, and Joan Blondell.
This month, the San Francisco Public Library presents a Thursday afternoon film series entitled "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" which showcases films about the American Great Depression.
On May 15, see "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936). Longfellow Deeds, a simple-hearted Vermont tuba player, inherits a fortune and has to contend with opportunist city slickers in this early Frank Capra comedy starring Gary Cooper.
This month, the San Francisco Public Library presents a Thursday afternoon film series entitled "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" which showcases films about the American Great Depression.
On May 22, see "Places in the Heart" (1984). A recently widowed woman (Sally Field) and the boarders she takes in struggle to survive in Texas during the Great Depression. Also starring Ed Harris, John Malkovich, and Danny Glover.
This month, the San Francisco Public Library presents a Thursday afternoon film series entitled "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" which showcases films about the American Great Depression.
On May 22, see "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (2000). Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) and two fellow convicts escape from their chain gang in rural 1930s Mississippi and have a series of adventures reminiscent of Homer's Odyssey. Also starring John Goodman, John Turturro, and Holly Hunter.
Born in a Thai refugee camp on Cambodian New Year, filmmaker Socheata Poeuv grew up in the United States never knowing that her family had survived the Khmer Rouge genocide. In "New Year Baby," she embarks on a journey to Cambodia in search of the truth and why her family's history had been buried in secrecy for so long.
The screening is part of ITVS Community Cinema, a free monthly screening series that previews films shown on the Emmy award-winning PBS series "Independent Lens." Films in this series are followed by lively panel discussions that connect communities with relevant organizations, resources, and opportunities to get involved in some of today's key social issues.
The Golden Gate Park Band has been playing free Sunday concerts in Golden Gate Park since 1882.
Their 2008 concert season (April 20 - October 12) runs the gamut from classical to swing, opera to Sousa marches, plus a wide range of ethnic music. The band collaborates regularly with various San Francisco ethnic and arts groups, who bring to the park their colorful costumes, dance groups, singers, and musicians.
Bring a blanket or lawn chair, pack a picnic, and enjoy one of America's oldest professional concert bands in the magnificent surroundings of Golden Gate Park.
San Francisco City Guides offer free historical and architectural walking tours of San Francisco's most famous (or, in some cases, infamous) districts, as well as some of its more hidden neighborhoods.
Approximately 30 different walks are offered each month, year-round, rain or shine. Walkers meet at the place and time designated in the current tour schedule. No reservations are required.
Honoring the thriving cocktail community of the San Francisco Bay Area, the second annual San Francisco Cocktail Week celebrates the culture and history of dining and drinking from May 13-19. Bars and restaurants throughout the city host daily events and festivities, ranging from dinner parties to literary lectures.
Cocktail Week kicks off with an Opening Gala at Harry Denton's Starlight Room, San Francisco's famous nightclub with a 360-degree view of the city. Returning to where he launched his career, honoree Tony Abou-Ganim -- creator of the legendary Cable Car cocktail -- will be tending bar and wowing the crowd with his renowned talents.
All guests will be greeted with a complimentary cable car or soiree (the "signature cocktail" of the festival) to start their evenings off right. Additional beverages can be purchased at the bar.
Honoring the thriving cocktail community of the San Francisco Bay Area, the second annual San Francisco Cocktail Week celebrates the culture and history of dining and drinking from May 13-19. Bars and restaurants throughout the city host daily events and festivities, ranging from dinner parties to literary lectures.
On May 14, the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) hosts an evening of cocktail sampling at the CUESA kitchen outside the Ferry Building.
During the evening, guests will enjoy cocktail demos hosted by renowned Bay Area bartenders using the freshest of farmers' market ingredients, as well as passed appetizers prepared by Executive Chef Gordon Drysdale (The Village Pub, Spruce, and Pizza Antica).
Cost of entry includes tastes of all demonstrated cocktails, tickets for two signature drinks, and appetizers.