Sir Aaron is!
Had a blast today at the Lovefest/Loveparade! My flickr pics sum it more than any thousands of words but here is the attempted summation from a SF Chronicle reporter:
Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, September 30, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO—A parade of floats and thousands of people gyrated and pulsated their way down Market Street this afternoon for the fourth annual San Francisco Lovefest, a street party celebrating electronic music, dancing, and, well, love.
“I love it!” shouted Monica Kennedy, who came from Las Vegas for the festivities. Clad in pink heels, a pink dress and pink wings with pink polka dots, Kennedy was arguably one of the more tamely dressed attendees.
“This is my first time- my friends and I flew in last night and are flying out tomorrow. We all love to get dressed up, and have fun,” she said. “This is fantastic … it’s all about the love.”
A festival called Loveparade originated in Berlin in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but in 2003, the city denied the parade a permit and the event moved to San Francisco. Last year, when German organizers were able to secure permits back in Berlin, North American organizers decided to continue their own event here and dubbed it the Lovefest. Three other cities around the world sponsor similar events every year.
“Our philosophy overall is community, peace and love,” said Lovefest spokeswoman Jessica Risling-Sholl, who estimated that about 65,000 people attended this year, the same number that organizers estimated for last year. That number, impossible to verify, may have been overly optimistic.
“Dance music has always been a genre that brings together a very diversified crowd,” Risling-Scholl said.
San Francisco’s event proved her right. The crowd was a mix of ages, races and styles, with attendees wearing everything from stilts and stilettos to glitter and corsets and wigs and petticoats – and sometimes nothing at all.
‘The craziest part is all the naked people,” said a smiling 17-year-old Brianna Linton, who had come down to the parade from Windsor with her friend Hailey Archambaut, 17. “We needed something to do on a Saturday, and this is like the sickest thing I have ever seen,” she said, apparently expressing a love of antonyms.
Belmont residents and veteran Lovefest attendees Paul and Andrea Rosenfeld were also grinning. The couple brought their 10-year-old and 22-month-old daughters, Murrie and Leah, to the event for the third year, and the whole family was dressed for the occasion, with mom in a bright pink wig topped with feather antennas, and dad in in a furry purple hat. Murrie picked out her own colorful outfit, while Leah was wearing cat ears – when she didn’t stash them in her stroller.
“They really like it,” Paul Rosenfeld said of the kids. “We make sure they have earplugs … but it’s just a lot of fun. We like dancing along with the floats, and everyone loves seeing the kids here.”
The parade of about two dozen floats packed with revelers, dancers and DJs blaring amplified electronic music began at Second and Market streets around noon, and headed toward Civic Center. Every time the procession stopped, an impromptu dance party appeared in the street, until the parade ended at Civic Center Plaza, where partiers regrouped and again continued the rave in front of City Hall.
Many tourists and other visitors stopped their shopping to watch the moving party stream by, though most professed little shock at the event.
Eileen Corrigan, 55, and Geraldine Rice, 57, were visiting San Francisco from Ireland and were taking photos of the parade from the sidewalk on Market Street. The sisters had read about the event in a tourist booklet, Corrigan said.
“It’s great – it adds a touch of excitement,” she said. “It’s kind of what you expect in San Francisco.”
Organizers said the event went smoothly, though there was at least one accident – a stilting spill. Forty-six-year-old David Hanson was attempting to hula hoop on his stilts and fell, breaking one of his wooden legs. He was soon back to the party, however, sans stilts.
“This is my first time and this is awesome,” he said. “It’s a festival celebrating love – where else would I be? I’m in the right city. I love this place.”
