Casualty of Weekend's Big, Scantily Clad Love Fest: Nerdy Saturday Library Use

By Joe Eskenazi Thu., Oct. 1 2009 at 8:30 AM

Categories: Local News

James Cohen

Pipe down out there! We're trying to read Popular Mechanics in here!

Let's hope the Beatles were right when they sang "All You Need is Love": if not, San Francisco library patrons are out of luck this weekend.

Due to the "LovEvolution" festival on Saturday at Civic Center, the Main Library will be closed. San Francisco Public Library officials haven't yet gotten back to us to answer whether this is due to concerns about near-nude, platform-shod Go-Go girls stumbling through the atrium and raising a ruckus in the reading room or if the notion of a "dance music parade and festival" just a few meters from the library was simply considered incompatible. We'd also like to know if this is the first love-related library closure, or if it's par for the course.

Incidentally, to stave off hundreds of San Franciscans' weekend queries of "What the hell is going on?" as they stumble on to Muni only to be confronted by scads of young men and women clad only in gold lamé underwear, the answer is LovEvolution.

This, by the way, is the fest formerly known as the "Love Parade" and "Love Fest," and the name change was prompted by legal pressure from an event in Los Angeles with an actual trademark on the term "Love Fest." Also, this year, it's going to cost you 10 bucks to get into Civic Center Plaza.

Hmmm. Looks like the Beatles were wrong.

Update, 8:53 a.m.: Library spokeswoman Michelle Jeffers returned our call. She said that it was more the noise and inconvenience that prompted the library's closure than worries of inebriated, semi-nude patrons (insert joke about Main Library's regular clientele here).

The library was open during last year's Love Fest, but "all the streets around the library were closed off and it was hard to get any access. So it was a very light day."

LovEvolution's organizer suggested the library close for the day, and the Board of Supervisors and Department of Parking and Traffic concurred. The adjacent Asian Art Museum will also be closed on Saturday, Oct. 3.

Jeffers said she believes LovEvolution is compensating the library "with some kind of donation," but she is unsure how large it is.