What’s Going On?

LovEvolution 2009 is a dance music parade and festival that happens once a year. Formerly known as Love Fest and Love Parade, LovEvolution is in it’s 6th year and larger than you can imagine. People took to the streets early Saturday morning awaiting the parade of floats, DJs, and dancers. People young and old came out to check out this yearly event and just about the only time in San Francisco that you can come dressed with next to nothing, well in some people’s cases they did just that.

LovEvolution is a week long celebration that started off the week with numerous DJs playing at different clubs throughout the city ending with the LovEvolution parade and festival. The LovEvolution parade started on 2nd and Market Streets and concluded at Civic Center Plaza where a $10 admission fee was charged for the festival. The festival lasted until 8pm where festival goers could enjoy more partying at other after parties located locally with ticket prices ranging up to around $80 per person.

The parade route was completely swamped with people dancing and grooving to the beats that the DJs were throwing out and it was an intensly populated parade that cross traffic was held up for almost a couple hours. No traffic, that I know of, was allowed to cross Market St. due to the large volume of people and as I walked the parade route I noticed people got out of their cars and walked up to the crosswalks to see what was going on. As the floats went down Market St. I was surprised to see big rigs pulling trailers filled with people and huge speakers. There were a couple nifty buses that were outfitted for a party which I thought added a little more character to the parade than the big rigs. Overall, the parade was a great hit amongst people of all ages and I can say is almost like the Bay to Breakers with people dressing up in costumes or skimpy clothing and even with some people that were bare naked.

At the festival the line to get in the Civic Center Plaza was insane. People waited over 30 minutes just to get inside. Once inside it was a mecca of dance music all around. Parade floats were somewhat evenly spaced out throughout the whole area with one fixed stage right in front of City Hall. Directly in the center of the Civic Center Plaza food and drink vendors lined the strip with a few memorabilia vendors scattered throughout. People were a little more rowdy inside as I can imagine as more alcohol and music surrounding was available. It got a little intense inside with a few getting alcohol poisoning, a few riled up enough to destroy public property, and a few having partied so much that they had to sit out for awhile.

In the end, I can only imagine how many showed up to the parade and festival and if I were to put a number on how many guests attended either the parade or the festival I would have to say that number would have to be around 200,000. LovEvolution turned out to be a huge success with a large following. The vision for LovEvoluion is for dance to promote peace, love, unity and respect.

Pictures of LovEvolution can be seen by clicking on the picture link above. Feel free to leave comments below for the pictures and the posting.