Get set for ramped-up security, surge pricing, price-gouging, and throngs of crowds, as both the Lunar New Year Parade and the NBA All-Star Game are happening in SF the same weekend, February 14-16, and will double-team SF for perhaps the biggest tourism weekend in years.
Valentine’s Day of February 14 falls on a Friday this year, so certainly that’s nice for restaurants and wine bars that hope for a lucrative winter-season evening. But the rest of that weekend is going to be an 800-pound gorilla of San Francisco tourism, with sidewalks, restaurants and bars absolutely packed. The NBA All-Star Weekend in San Francisco and the 2025 SF Chinese New Year Parade are both converging on the city for the weekend of February 14-16.
Chinatown and Mission Bay will be separately overflowing with mobs of tourists, while Uber, Lyft, and Waymo will probably be in surge-pricing mode all over town. And many neighborhoods will not be able to escape the din of fireworks, in what may be San Francisco’s biggest tourism weekend since before the pandemic.
Fireworks and firecrackers being set off on Jackson Street in SF Chinatown for Lunar New Year eve celebrations. pic.twitter.com/HwlUEOPUui
— Ko Lyn Cheang (@kolyn_cheang) February 10, 2024
This recalls that era some ten years ago when Fleet Week, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and Dreamforce all happened at the same time. We are probably looking at tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of additional tourists in SF that weekend, but we won’t know until that mid-February mega-event weekend happens. And since many of the NBA All-Star Weekend events are happening at the Oakland Arena, one would expect that BART will be pretty packed as well.
Saturday was a post-pandemic record breaking day for Saturday ridership.
Ridership was 123,636 trips.
That is 54k more trips than last Saturday. The previous post pandemic Saturday record was 116k in October 2023.
SF’s Chinese New Year Parade and Oakland FansFest helped! pic.twitter.com/CGRtGXPRos
— BART (@SFBART) February 26, 2024
So how many people are we expecting that weekend? The SF Lunar New Year Parade website cites the figure “over three million spectators and television viewers,” but that’s counting the television audience too. Last year’s KPIX Chinese New Year Parade preview anticipated “tens of thousands” of attendees (though there are events all weekend long, not just Saturday’s parade), while the NBA claims that last year’s All-Star Game festivities in Indianapolis drew “more than 190,000 fans.”
We asked the SFPD and Mayor Lurie’s office how they’re preparing logistically for this double-dribble of tourist hordes, and we will update this post with any response. But Lunar New Year Parade officials tell us they’re welcoming the basketball fans to their event with open arms.
“We are aware of the NBA All-Star game being on the same weekend as the parade, and are working with local city planning and law enforcement agencies to safely plan for the eventful weekend,” Chinese New Year Parade spokesperson William Gee told SFist, noting that the parade is on Saturday, while the All-Star Game is on Sunday. “We don’t anticipate any disruptions between our two events and welcome everyone to come out to San Francisco to enjoy both events.”
Indeed, looking at the schedule, the Chinese New Year Parade is Saturday night (Feb. 15) and the All-Star Game is Sunday night (Feb. 16). But both events offer a jam-packed weekend of supporting events.
⭐️ @Zedd is coming to NBA All-Star! Get tickets today ⭐️
The Michelob ULTRA Courtside Concert featuring Zedd is happening at Pier 48 in San Francisco on Friday, Feb. 14! More acts to be announced soon 👀
Get tix: https://t.co/RtMTieCeaS pic.twitter.com/1tAHgGPFJX
— #NBAAllStar (@NBAAllStar) January 10, 2025
Friday night kicks off the NBA Rising Stars Tournament at the Chase Center, followed by the All-Star Concert series at Pier 48, which is about a ten-minute walk from the Chase Center. Zedd is playing Friday night, the Chainsmokers play there after the game Sunday night, and they haven’t yet announced Saturday night’s performer. The lowest GA tickets are $150, but supposedly Saturday night’s show will require a three-day pass.
Simultaneous to the Zedd show, the Miss Chinatown USA Pageant is happening at the Westin Saint Francis.
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The 2025 Lunar New Year Parade is Saturday, Feb. 15 at 5:15 pm. And that will definitely overlap with the Slam Dunk Contest and Three-Point Contest at the Chase Center. They have not yet announced whether Steph Curry will participate in the three-point contest, nor whether he will take on another WNBA star for a classic “man vs woman” matchup. Either way, those Saturday tickets are all sold out on Ticketmaster.
The #NBAAllStar Game has a new tournament-style format 👀
Shaq, Chuck, Kenny, and Candace Parker will serve as honorary team GMs 🧵 pic.twitter.com/wD8cXlnaKt
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) December 17, 2024
So for the rest of us, the Lunar New Year Parade is where it’s at. The parade goes from Market and Second streets to Geary Street, up Powell Street, East on Post Street and then up Kearny Street to Columbus Avenue.
HeadsUp: The #ChineseNewYear Parade is this Saturday, 2/19. The parade will start at 5:30pm from Market & 2nd. #SFMuni svc will be impacted. Reroute details here: https://t.co/qNRIndWkgN pic.twitter.com/rxcbVhb4lV
— SFMTA (@SFMTA_Muni) February 18, 2022
The above street closures are from a previous year, as the SFMTA has not yet announced street closures for either event yet, as are we are still currently a month away from this tourist-pacolypse. And will Muni be free again this year on the night of the parade? Again, we’ll have to wait and see.
The #NBAAllStar Game has a new tournament-style format 👀
Shaq, Chuck, Kenny, and Candace Parker will serve as honorary team GMs 🧵 pic.twitter.com/wD8cXlnaKt
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) December 17, 2024
And then on Sunday there is the Chinatown Street Fair (9am-5pm, same as it is on Saturday), but of course also the NBA All-Star Game at 8 pm at the Chase Center. They have changed the format this year so it’s actually four teams playing three separate games in a “mini-tournament” format in hopes of making the game less dreadfully boring than it has been in years past. TNT’s resident jokers Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith, and Candace Parker will choose the players, and their teams will then duke it out on national TV.
Charles Barkley saying San Francisco is full of homeless crooks was probably the best moment of the NBA All Star Game. pic.twitter.com/xwdfz4HARr
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 19, 2024
This should all go better for the Warriors than the last time they hosted the All-Star Game in the Year 2000 (in Oakland), when the Warriors sucked and did not have any All-Star players on the team, and then-owner Chris Cohan was booed off the floor. But this weekend might not go as well for San Francisco, if someone, say, sets a Waymo on fire in Chinatown at Lunar New Year like they did last year. And if something like that happens, Charles Barkley’s jokes about San Francisco will be the least of our worries.
Related: It’s Official: SF Is Getting the 2025 NBA All-Star Game at the Chase Center [SFist]
Images: (Left) INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA – FEBRUARY 18: Stephen Curry #30 of the Golden State Warriors and Western Conference All-Stars dribbles the ball against the Eastern Conference All-Stars in the fourth quarter during the 2024 NBA All-Star Game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on February 18, 2024 in Indianapolis, Indiana. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
(Right) Alaska Airlines Chinese New Year Festival & Parade