Pink Saturday
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Pink Saturday is San Francisco's largest underground party on the Saturday night before (Gay) Pride Day (San Francisco Pride) in San Francisco's Castro District attracting more than half a million people and coinciding with the annual Dyke March. The event usually has the air of a wild party but is rarely as out of control as the Castro Halloween party has infamously been and is generally free of the hate crimes that seem to go hand in hand with Halloween in the Castro - widely seen as the gay mecca of the west if not the world.
The famous "Castro Cross" where Castro Street and 18th street intersect has been and continues to be ground-zero for queer activists and causes of a wide range and is also a busy commercial district with gay-themed bars and shops plus services. The Pink Saturday party has been compared to a giant house party for the LGBT community of all ages and has nurtured not only queer-identified street artists but also the original Dyke March which used to start in the middle of the event as a protest by gay, lesbian and bisexual women against the homogenized gay men's "Castro clone" mentality and misogyny.
The event organizers started off rough and disbanded but the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro (MUMC) seized control of the event and hired the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Inc. to act as gate keepers collecting donations to pay for the event in the early 1990's.
With the leadership from SF Pride's president Deborah Oakley-Melvin and the Sisters' Sister Kitty Catalyst the two organizations took over the event in the mid-90's with SF Pride giving full control to the Sisters in 1998.
The Sisters being worldwide and very outspoken activists now served as hostesses and organizers of the huge event and served as role models how to run a street party as a proper and indulgent event without excessive corporate sponsorships as is the norm for most gay pride events and with an all-volunteer crew.
The Pink Saturday concept has been picked up in smaller forms as tourists from around the world witness the joy in simply having fun together in a safe and welcoming environment which is all too rare for queer, gay and same-gender loving people and exporting that concept to their cities.
The Sisters gate collection monies after expenses are routinely given away by the non-profit group as part of their Community Grants funding a wide variety of mostly queer-identified projects including the giant pink triangle installed atop San Francisco's Twin Peaks for Pride weekend, the Pink Triangle Park and the Rainbow Flags fund.
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