Online Neon Symposium. Join us on Zoom for a day of neon preservation, pop culture, and virtual neon tours from far and wide. Register

• 10:30 am | Adam Taylor, neon artist, Oakland
• 11:00 am | Paulo Barata Corrêa & Rita Múrias, Projecto Letreiro Galeria, saving signs in Lisbon, Portugal
• 11:45 am | Kurt Kraler and Dizzy Minotte, Signs that Define Toronto
• 12:15 pm | Paul Greenstein, saving neon signs in Los Angeles
  Break
• 2:00 pm | Kevin Mak and Ken Fung, saving street signs in Hong Kong
• 3:00 pm | Shawna Peterson and Patrick Picolo, neon sign design in Oakland
• 3:45 pm | SF Wonderlite vintage neon sign design collection: Dan Fontes with Stephen Coles, Al Barna, and Randall Homan, San Francisco

Oakland Neon Works Shop Tour. A rare opportunity to see a working neon shop in action with live fires and tube-bending demo with Adam Taylor. Don’t miss Jim Rizzo’s fine collection of restored vintage signs and sign boneyard. Back by popular demand. Sold Out

Alameda Neon Walking Tour. Take a 7 pm twilight walking tour and see the beautiful neon signs in the historic city of Alameda, CA. Space is limited to 12 people, register early. This tour is an annual favorite event of Neon Speaks. Sold Out

Neon + Punk. Celebrate the music and the neon from one of San Francisco’s most historic and grittiest neighborhoods. Join us for an evening under a glowing achievement: A 25-foot neon sign proclaiming: “The Tenderloin”. This event is hosted by Al and Randall of SF Neon and includes food and drinks. To bring the sound we are featuring local musician and neon friend Chuck Prophet. Prophet will be spinning LPs and singles from the golden era of SF Punk and Proto-Punk. So many of these recordings were made right here in the cool grey city of love, the greatest place in the U.S. to live and dream. Photo: Cyntia Salazar.
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. Register

Special Screening at the Roxie Theater SF. Join us for an afternoon special screening to celebrate Bill Concannon, a local treasure of the neon community. Bill closed his neon shop this year to concentrate on retirement. Bill is a talented neon artist and has many claims to fame including his neon model-making for Francis Ford Coppola’s film One from the Heart. (VIP reception is sold out.) This screening features the remastered version of this 1981 film, a glittery and gritty Las Vegas love story. Introduced by SF Neon and followed by a Q&A with Bill Concannon.
3:35 pm. Register

Museum Tour: She Bends: Neon as Soulcraft at the Museum of Craft and Design. Dive into the artistic craft of neon through a guided tour of She Bends: Neon as Soulcraft, a neon exhibition focusing on the process and art of neon bending. Curated by Kelsey Issel and Meryl Pataky of She Bends, the exhibition showcases never-seen-before artworks created during three student-teacher residencies held across the United States. After the tour, attendees can explore the exhibition on their own and participate in hands-on neon related activities in the MakeArt Lab. Museum admission and MakeArt activities are included with your ticket. Space is limited to 12 per tour,

Saturday Sept 14 tour, 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm. Sold Out
Sunday Sept 15 tour, 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm. Sold Out

Letterform Archive Tour for Neon Speaks. Letterform Archive is a nonprofit museum and library preserving and sharing over 100,000 items of graphic design history. In this special guided tour for the Neon Speaks festival with Archive associate curator, Stephen Coles, you’ll get hands-on access to original works and books on signs and lettering from this one-of-a-kind collection. See oversized movie theater banners, original artwork from the Speedball archive, an early-20th-century neon portfolio, exemplars of glass gilding, rare reference books and manuals on sign making, and other artifacts.

The guided tour is 1 hour, with 30 minutes of extra browsing time (Second tour added at 6:30 PM). Limited to 12 people. Photography encouraged. Few tickets left! Register

Neon Symposium and Curiosity Lounge at the Verdi Club SF. This festival finale features symposium presentations, panel discussions by champions of neon signs far and wide at the beautiful Verdi Club ballroom. Doors open at 2:30 pm for the Neon Curiosity Lounge exhibits by artists and preservationists and includes light fare. Presentations start at 3 pm. Discount tickets available for seniors/students/educators. Register