Folsom Street Fair
The Folsom Street Fair is an open-air event, held annually on the last Sunday in September, the Leather Pride Week in San Francisco , California closes. A similar event in Berlin is named after this event.
Folsom San Francisco
The street fair is the annual highlight of the US leather and fetish scene. Mostly simply referred to as Folsom , the event in San Francisco's “South of Market District” takes place on Folsom Street between 7th and 12th. Street instead. The major event has been held since 1984 and is the world's largest festival for the leather scene. It is the third largest public event in California and the largest exhibition for BDSM equipment and culture worldwide.
The Folsom in San Francisco has an average of around 400,000 visitors each year, including many BDSM fans and gay leather fans from all over the world. Many people who cannot be assigned to the BDSM or leather spectrum also come to watch and celebrate. All income is donated to recognized charities such as B. the AIDS aid donated; the event generates approximately $ 250,000 annually for these purposes.
Further non-European folsoms
The success of the original event meant that similar events are now being held around the world. For example, a smaller event called Folsom Street East has been taking place in New York City since 1997 , although it is only tolerated under the name and does not belong to the official Folsom family (such as Folsom Europe ). In Toronto , Canada , a similar event existed for a few years under the name Folsom Fair North in the borough of Church and Wellesley . However, after the collaboration with the original Folsom in San Francisco ended, she had to change her name to FFN.
Folsom Europe
In Berlin , an association from the local leather scene in the Schöneberg district has been holding a corresponding event on the first weekend of September under the name Folsom Europe since 2004 . In addition to the homosexual groups, SMart Rhein-Ruhr , BVSM and BDSM Berlin were represented with their own booth. The surpluses go to support groups that do prevention or care work in the area of HIV / AIDS . The then Governing Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit and the Berlin Tourism Association support the event, which was the first street festival for the leather fetish scene in Europe and is now considered the most important meeting.
Reactions from the media and from politics
The San Francisco Chronicle reported in a slightly amused tone about the Folsom Street Fair there in 2005.
Berlin 2005
In 2005, the greeting Wowereits led to a local political scandal. Berlin editors spoke in response to the first-time support of Folsom Europe of a "really tough number" after the local CDU had already described the greeting Wowereits as "incompatible with the dignity of high office" and leaflets had appeared in which it was claimed, Wowereit "trivialized racist rape pornography as pure joie de vivre". At that time, the Berlin CDU took the view that photos in the written marketing material of the event “show unabashed acts of uninhibited violence” and “fascist motifs”.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Glen Martin: Leather or not, lookers aplenty indulge at Folsom Street Fair ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , San Francisco Chronicle, September 26, 2005.
- ↑ Press release of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group, “Koschyk / violence: SPD must distance itself from Wowereit”, August 30, 2005, online at presseportal.de
- ↑ ntv.de Union outraged: Wowereits greeting
- ↑ tagesspiegel.de from September 1st, 2005 Sado-Maso-Fest: Wowereit defends the opening speech
