San Francisco’s one of the most famous cities celebrating Pride, and this weekend you can see a dazzling rainbow flag stretch 4.1 miles down Market Street from near the Ferry Building to the top of Twin Peaks. The laser light installation kicks off the city’s Pride Weekend 2023. Six colors (purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red) created out of 12 lasers will constitute the world’s largest Pride flag!
The light installation is titled WELCOME, created with lights against the city’s fog (the credited artist is Karl the Fog, the city’s fond nickname for its atmospheric friend). Not only is the flag more than 4 miles long, but it’s also 49 feet wide, and the celebration will be over the top for this important weekend.
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Come for the prelighting event 7-9pm tonight at Harry Bridges Plaza near the Ferry Building. Here, there’ll be DJs, circus performers, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence ramping up the crowd. Then the famous 10 Dykes on Bikes will rumble up the Embarcadero with a Rainbow Torch to officially start the event. There will also be a human Pride flag made up of at least 120 people. Once darkness falls around 9:15, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed will fire up the laser space cannons. Although festivities only occur tonight, the flag will again be lit on Saturday and Sunday.
The organization behind all this, public art foundation Illuminate, gives credit to Gilbert Baker, who designed the rainbow flag in 1978 and refused to trademark it, and to Yvette Mattern and Laserworld AG who preceded Illuminate in creating laser rainbow installations.
Experience the awe and celebrate Pride!
CORRECTION: Artist Yvette Mattern maintains her copyright in the technology and design of the laser rainbow installation, which she has shown all over the world and for which she has won lawsuits against others for copyright infringement. She asserts that WELCOME is also a copyright infringement.