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Events

International Beer Festival

The biggest beer festival in the city is an annual event that features hundreds of beers from around the world, including Thailand, Japan, England and Germany as well as local brews and allows visitors to taste as much as they like. Live bands and a wide selection of food from local restaurants add to the atmosphere.

Venue: Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason; Date: 26 April 2008; Time: 7pm to 10pm; Website: www.sfbeerfest.com

Uncorked!

The San Francisco Wine Festival is a celebration of wine, providing opportunity to taste, learn about and enjoy wines produced from San Francisco's local wine-making region. Various events take place along Beach Street including chef demonstrations, wine tasting seminars, and a chocolate and wine pairing seminar.

Venue: Ghirardelli Square; Date: 17 May 2008; Time: 1-6pm; Website: www.ghirardellisq.com

Costumed parade © www.flickr.com/photos/72213316@N00/2462102150

Carnaval

Every Memorial Day weekend, the Mission District hosts San Francisco’s version of the Mardi Gras celebrations with music and dancing, food and craft stalls, contests, street performers, and a parade with lavish floats, marching bands and colourful costumes. The Grand Parade is an exotic celebration of different traditions and cultures from around the world, with floats and dancers depicting vibrant multi-cultural themes, from samba and Chinese Lion dancers, to African drummers, and accompanied by the hip-swinging music of Latin America, Brazil, and the Caribbean.

Venue: Mission District; Date: 24-25 May 2008; Time: 10am to 6pm; Parade on Sunday at 9.30am; Website: www.carnavalsf.com

Haight Ashbury Street Fair

One of the city’s most famous neighbourhoods, the Haight-Ashbury was the centre of the hippie movement in the 1960s, and the summer Haight Street Fair is a vibrant and colourful celebration of its cultural heritage and creative roots. Two stages provide a variety of musical presentations and entertainment, and the streets are filled with food and drinks vendors, art and craft stalls and street performers.

Venue: Haight Street, Haight-Ashbury District; Date: 8 June 2008; Time: 11am to 5pm; Website: www.haightashburystreetfair.org

North Beach Festival

North Beach Festival

Every year 'Little Italy' celebrates San Francisco's oldest street festival with arts and crafts, a pizza toss competition, local delicacies, Italian street chalk art, cooking demonstrations and cheese carving. The weekend kicks off with the Animal Blessing at the national Shrine of St Francis, and entertainment includes live jazz, rock, blues, salsa and swing music in a salutation to the Italian and Beat Generation history of the neighbourhood.

Venue: North Beach District; main stage in Washington Park; Date: 14-15 June 2008; Time: 10am to 6pm; Website: www.sfnorthbeach.org/festival

San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration

As the world’s most gay-friendly city, San Francisco celebrates gay and lesbian pride with a festive procession and numerous music stages. The parade features hundreds of themed marchers and floats, after which thousands of people from every walk of life gather at the Civic Center to carry on the party in front of one of the many music stages. The area is lined with stalls selling everything from food and drink to crafts and souvenirs.

Venue: Market Street, from Embarcadero to the Civic Center; Date: 28-29 June 2008; Time: 12pm to 6pm; parade on Sunday at 10.30am; Website: www.sfpride.org

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival

The Bay area has been hailed as one of the dance capitals of the country and the annual Ethnic Dance Festival is the most significant contributor to its reputation as such. The festival presents dance styles from around the globe introducing a diverse range of cultural traditions, from Scottish dancers to belly dancing. Weekends only.

Venue: Palace of Fine Arts; Date: 7-29 June 2008; Time: weekends only; Website: www.worldartswest.org

Dead Sea Scrolls and 5,000 Years of Treasure

The Dead Sea Scrolls are one of the greatest archaeological finds in history, discovered by Bedouin herders in 1947 in caves along the shore of the Dead Sea. The collection were rolled up in jars, and fragments were pieced together to form more than 800 documents, including texts from the Bible, including the book of Psalms. This small exhibition features a rotating selection of the scrolls, as well as other artefacts from the region from 4,000 BC to 11th century AD, all treasures on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority and mostly on view outside Israel for the first time.

Venue: Legion of Honor; Date: 16 February to 10 August 2008; Website: www.famsf.org/legion/index.asp

McCoy Tyner © Gisle

Monterey Jazz Festival

The Monterey Jazz Festival is one of the oldest and most famous annual jazz festivals in the world. Throughout the decades, some of the greatest names in jazz have played including Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, McCoy Tyner and Oscar Peterson. The main focus of the festival is jazz education with several workshops held over the weekend.

Venue: Monterey Fairgrounds, Monterey; Date: 19-21 September 2008; Website: www.montereyjazzfestival.org/50th

Chinese New Year Parade

Chinese New Year Parade

The New Year Parade is the highlight and focus of the two-week Chinese New Year celebrations that includes the Miss Chinatown USA Pageant, the Community Street Fair and the New Year Flower Market. A San Francisco tradition since the 1849 Gold Rush, the Parade is the biggest celebration of its kind outside Asia and is listed as one of the top 10 parades in the world. Hundreds of spectators gather to watch as colourful floats, elaborate costumes, firecrackers, stilt walkers, lion dancers and marching bands go by, and wait in expectation for the world-famous annual Golden Dragon, which is 160ft (49m) long and takes over 100 men to carry it through the streets. In 2009 the Year of the Ox begins.

Venue: Chinatown; Date: 26 January 2009, TBC; Time: 5.30pm; Website: www.chineseparade.com