Plus: An apartment building fire in SF’s Cow Hollow neighborhood turned deadly Friday evening, and more San Francisco weekend news.
San Francisco was alive with all manner of ghoulishness this past Friday night — a collection of regal terror that spilled well into the weekend. There was no place where that nexus of nightmarish costuming and glow-in-the-dark decor met better (or more effectively, tbh) than at the Palace of Fine Arts, which was turned into a “Ghost Palace” for Electroluxx’s now-annual takeover of the iconic venue.
For its third year running, Electroluxx, the queer-focused event company founded by San Francisco-based artist Elliott C. Nathan, DJ Brett Mendenhall, and Danny Snodgrass, who sadly passed away in 2021, has transformed the Palace of Fine Arts into a psychedelic, haunting, almost Avatar-like landscape come Halloween in 2022. The event, which is known for attracting both local and national talent for DJ sets and live performances, “Art Cars’ were also included in this year’s festivities, punctuating the plethora of dedicated art rooms dotting the event.
The present sea of creativity ebbed and flowed with people’s costuming. Human-sized burgers bounced off Madonna look-alikes on the dance floor; vampires and werewolves were seen conversing with Minions and bipedal clownfish; more traditional black-and-white skull makeup was concentrated by those getting a jump start on Dias de Los Muertos; San Franciscos’ famous LED “Doloresaurus” was accounted for; nearly every costume encountered echoed some semblance of queerness, sans hypsexual jock tropes — thank God.
For such an ostensibly small, tight-knit event’s company to pull off such grandeur is a testament to the talent behind Electrouxx. And we can’t wait to see what 2026 will bring from the group during the most haunted time of the year.
What else transpired over the weekend? Let’s take a look.
- A person died during a Friday night Fire in Cow Hollow. The blaze was first reported at 9:25 pm on the 1500 block of Filbert Street on Friday evening, forcing the 12-unit apartment building to evacuate and ultimately leading to the death of one person. More info.
- Someone was hit by a stray bullet while walking along Van Ness Avenue before the weekend. A man walking past a group was reportedly hit by at least one stray bullet on Friday, around 11:50 pm; no arrests have been made in the case yet, and the individual was transported to a nearby hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries. More info.
- Some of the skateboarders suing the City over 2023’s mass-arrest Mission District hill bombing have now filed under a class action lawsuit status. The group of four teenagers behind the case has opened legal pathways for the 113 adults and teenagers who were arrested during the incident to take part in the lawsuit. More info.
