After being forced to cancel in 2020 because of the pandemic, the Folsom Europe Street Fair returned to Berlin, Germany, over the weekend, with a big, open-air gathering on Saturday, September 11th. The event has been running in Europe since 2004.
Related: What San Francisco leather folx are saying about this year’s Folsom Street Fair
The festival attracted fetishists and leather lovers from all over the world, although numbers, unsurprisingly, were a little down on previous years as many people are still wary of traveling.
However, those who did attend reported having an amazing time.
Enrico Carlson (above), an Italian returning to the event, told GayCities: “It was a great experience. This year it was a great moment to feel finally ‘free’ after the terrible year we had all for Covid19… unfortunately, this year, the ‘Saturday night official Pig party’ was impossible to organize but a lot of clubs were open and the parade was epic.”
Checks were carried out to ensure Covid-19 protocols were followed, and mask-wearing was encouraged (to the delight of the many leather pups present!).
Everyone attending the street fair had to show either proof of vaccination, or that they’d recovered from Covid, or had a negative test in the hours before the event.
“The event has been the most positive and social fetish event I’ve attended in years,” another attendee, PrincePunk (@theprincepunk) said. “The community has been nothing but supportive and loving. When you look like us and still feel welcome by strangers, it’s a win-win for everybody.”
Related: Finding Dore–Up Your Alley fair returns to San Francisco
Partners Andres and Paul (above), from Scotland, are the men behind the Darkroom fetishwear collection.
“We went to Folsom to explore the world of fetish and talk to our customer base to do some market research,” Paul told GayCities. “Andres put together a custom chain harness for us which we plan to make available for our customers soon! Watch this space!”
Besides the street fair, events taking place over the four-day festival included a fetish flea market, a tour of Berlin, a fetish boat trip, and a Tom of Finland exhibition. The festivities began with a kink-positive leather music recital at the Twelve Apostles Evangelical Church, in the heart of Berlin’s gay neighborhood, Schoeneberg
Check out some more images below.
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