Up Your Alley Fair [Edit]
The Up Your Alley Fair, most commonly referred to by locals as Dore Alley Fair or simply Dore Alley, is a leather and fetish event held in San Francisco, California, on the last Sunday of July on Folsom Street between 9th and 10th Streets and on Dore Street (also called Dore Alley) from Howard Street to half a block southeast of Folsom Street. The streets are lined with vendors’ booths, and a sound stage (for dancing) is located at the 10th Street end of the fair area.
At the fair Steamworks Baths hosts a Twister stage, and there is dancing, DJs, STI testing, and fetish wear sales. This fair is more gay-male focused than the Folsom Street Fair, but welcoming to all sexes and sexual orientations. It is run by the same non-profit organization that produces the Folsom Street Fair.
History
Due to the success of the first Folsom Street Fair, its organizers created the Up Your Alley Fair in 1985; it was held on Ringold Street between 8th and 9th Streets. The fair moved to Dore Street between Howard and Folsom in 1987. Among the original rationales for the Up Your Alley Fair was to illustrate, in the face of redevelopment pressures, that the South of Market neighborhood was already home to a leather subculture and that this community was still active and organized in spite of the AIDS pandemic.
In 2020, both the Up Your Alley Fair and the Folsom Street Fair were cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.