Over the last 10 years, as San Francisco has become more gentrified, less affordable, and less non-conformist friendly, the character of Folsom, and its little brother, Dore Alley (aka Up Your Alley) has changed dramatically. Following the current crisis, I'm not sure what will happen, and it may be a long time before we see the next Folsom Fair-- I'm not sure that by September civic authorities would authorize a crowd of 400,000 packed into the streets.
The Folsom street fair itself is very crowded, which is one of the reasons I prefer the smaller Dore Alley fair. (I've being going to both consistently for 20 years now.) Dore tends to be more gay male oriented, while Folsom is pan sexual, has a bigger vendor area, and has more people who just came to gawk, rather than participate. In the "old days," both events were much more expressive. I mean this not just in the sexual sense. People would dress in outrageous costumes and put on a sort of street theater. While this still happens, it is not so much as before, probably because the crowding has become too intense. The sexual expression is far less. It used to be the porn studios put on live sex shows in their vendor booths, and the crowd sort of did the same, but this is no more. (There are some S&M and bondage demos, but not sex.) People in the crowd will still do whatever, but it doesn't seem to have the same vibe.
But the street fair is not the only event of the Dore/Folsom weekend. In fact, I'm usually already exhausted by then. There are the various parties and other events. At one time, both fairs had huge sex parties as officially sanctioned events, with thousands in attendance. The Folsom Magnitude party was a legendary dance with an adjoining dungeon space. Then the dungeon space vanished for a few years now, and last year there wasn't even a Magnitude party at all. A similar situation happened for Dore, where the official play events are no more. There are still big club events, just no official play parties, although there are smaller such unofficial events.
Don't get me wrong, I still go to both events,and do really enjoy myself, but it's just not like the old days. But I try to do my part, rather than being a gawker. Despite the cost, I get a hotel room right in the fair space, do my hourly fetish costume changes, and entertain as best I can. (Some of the things I've done for the tourists...But I did learn never to get my hard cock bull-whipped again!) Many of my gallery pics are from these events.