September is when San Francisco’s weather turns. The fog that sits over the western half of the city through July and August thins out, and September and October are reliably the warmest and clearest stretch of the year here. It is also a dense month on the calendar: the opera and the symphony both open their seasons, two large free street festivals land mid-month, and several museum shows either open or close.
Here is what is happening in San Francisco in September 2026, with the dates and costs we have been able to verify from first-party sources.
Festivals and Free Street Events
Opera in the Park, Sunday, September 13. San Francisco Opera’s free outdoor concert in Golden Gate Park follows its opening night the day before. It is free, it is outdoors, and it is the single easiest way to hear the company without a ticket. Details are in our piece on San Francisco Opera’s opening weekend.
Chinatown Autumn Moon Festival, September 19 and 20. Grant Avenue closes for two days of the mid-autumn festival, with lion dancing, food stalls and street performance. Free to attend. See our Autumn Moon Festival preview for the layout and how to approach it on foot.
Muni Heritage Weekend, September 19 and 20. The same weekend, the SFMTA and Market Street Railway run free trips on vintage streetcars and buses from the San Francisco Railway Museum at 77 Steuart Street, 10am to 4pm both days. Our Muni Heritage Weekend preview lists the vehicles expected and what the cable car rides cost.
Portola, September 26 and 27, Pier 80. The electronic and pop festival returns to the Dogpatch waterfront with about 60 artists across four stages. Robyn and Dog Blood headline Saturday; Swedish House Mafia and Tiësto headline Sunday. It is 21 and over, there is no parking, and Portola Week club events run September 24 through 27. Our Portola 2026 guide has the stage assignments and current pass prices.
Philippine Sun, from September 4. A light sculpture by the Filipino collective mumu, titled 13°N, 122°E, is unveiled at Yerba Buena Gardens on September 4 and stays up afterward. Its light is timed to sunrise and sunset in the Philippines. Free. See our report on the installation.
The Presidio turns 250 on September 17. El Presidio de San Francisco was founded on that date in 1776, and the Presidio Trust is marking the anniversary across the whole year rather than on one day. The free guided walk 250 Years on the Presidio is on Sunday, September 13 at 11am, and the park’s eighth annual Chuseok Festival, a celebration of Korean culture, is on Saturday, September 26. Our piece on the Presidio at 250 covers the programming and what is free to see on any day.
Music and Performing Arts
San Francisco Opera opens September 12 with Simon Boccanegra at the War Memorial Opera House, alongside the Opera Ball. Mary, Queen of Scots follows, September 20 through October 4.
That opening is now in question. The company’s orchestra told patrons on August 27 that it will not play opening night without a new contract. Nothing has been cancelled, and both sides are still negotiating.
The San Francisco Symphony opens September 24 with its gala at Davies Symphony Hall: Giancarlo Guerrero conducting, Hilary Hahn playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. The night worth circling is September 25, the All San Francisco Concert, where a limited public allocation of tickets is sold at $12. Two of the three works overlap with the gala program. Our season opening piece explains how the $12 tickets work and why the Symphony’s own gala page is currently showing last season’s information.
Two other Davies dates before the season opener: Samara Joy on September 8, and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in Concert, September 10 through 12, with the score played live to the film.
Museums: What Opens and What Closes
September is a month of deadlines. Four shows close and three open.
Closing: Vivid: Immerse Your Senses at the California Academy of Sciences ended September 7, after which the Academy has no headline temporary exhibit until Halloween. Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal closes at SFMOMA on September 13; because the terms of the bequest forbid the painting from travelling, the show has no second venue anywhere. The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy closes at the Legion of Honor on September 20. Tiny Chef, Big Impact at the Academy of Sciences runs to September 30.
Opening: Eternal Paris: Photographing the City of Light opens at the Legion of Honor on September 5, in Gallery 22, with roughly 50 photographs from the Achenbach Foundation. It is included with general admission, which means a free Saturday covers it. Garuda in Bali opens at the Asian Art Museum on September 18, in the Hambrecht Contemporary Gallery, and is also included with general admission. Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective, the Korean painter’s first museum show in North America, opens at the Asian Art Museum on September 25 and runs to January 25, 2027; note that September 24 is a members-only day, not the public opening.
Reopening: The Museum of Craft and Design reopens September 5 with OBJECTS: USA, on view through January 17, 2027. The Museum of the African Diaspora, closed since August for installation, reopens on September 30 with Nexus Black Art Week, September 30 through October 4, and Dorian Reid’s Calling All Cats!, up through December 6. The anchor of the new season is Dewey Crumpler: Sonic Lineages, which fills all three floors from September 30 through May 30, 2027.
Still running: Treasures of the Pharaohs at the de Young, through January 31, 2027, ticketed separately. A Gallery of Their Own and Superficial Matters, both at the de Young since mid-August, run into 2027.
Outside the museums: Ken Kesey’s original Furthur bus and Jerry Garcia’s BMW are on public display in the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park, in the Haight Street Art Center’s Forever Grateful, Golden Gate Park, September 5 through October 25 on timed-entry tickets. The companion exhibition at the art center’s own gallery on Haight Street closes September 20.
Sport
The Golden State Valkyries have two regular-season home games left, on September 18 and 19 at Chase Center. The WNBA pauses league-wide from August 31 through September 16 for the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup, so there is no Valkyries basketball in the city for the first half of the month. The team has already clinched a playoff spot, and postseason dates had not been published as of late August. Our piece on the schedule around the break has the remaining dates and how to get to the arena.
Food and Drink
Prelude closes on September 19. The Southern-inspired restaurant inside The Jay hotel at 333 Battery Street serves its last dinner that night, two years after it opened, and Omakase Restaurant Group says a new concept will take the same space this fall. The details are in our report on the closing.
Cole Valley is filling up. Four businesses are arriving on the neighborhood’s block and a half of Cole Street: Pasta Supply Co in the former Peet’s Coffee space, a new restaurant from Hamano Sushi’s Jiro Lin in the former Kamekyo space, the antique store Schatzgarten this month, and the coffee shop Double Black, which opened over the summer. Our rundown of what is opening covers where each one is and how to get there on the N Judah.
Free Things to Do
September 1 was the first Tuesday of the month, which made the de Young, the Legion of Honor and the Conservatory of Flowers free on the first day of the month. The Asian Art Museum was free on Sunday, September 6. The de Young and the Legion are free every Saturday for residents of the nine Bay Area counties. Our free museum days guide for September has the full list, including the library pass programs.
Beyond the museums, Opera in the Park on September 13 and the Autumn Moon Festival on September 19 and 20 are both free, and the Philippine Sun installation at Yerba Buena Gardens is free and permanent. So are the Presidio’s anniversary walk on September 13 and its Chuseok Festival on September 26.
Free all month, and all year: the Golden Gate Dozen, a named 13-mile route from Crissy Field to Fort Funston that links 12 national park sites, including Fort Point, Lands End, Sutro Baths and Ocean Beach. It breaks into shorter segments, and September and October are the clearest months to walk the ocean half of it.
At Fisherman’s Wharf, Alioto’s Plaza has opened on the site of the demolished Alioto’s restaurant, and it costs nothing to walk through.
Getting Around: Closures and Changes
September is Transit Month across the Bay Area, the eleventh year of it, with a month-long ride contest and more than 80 mostly free events, including a ride-along with the transit agencies’ chief executives on September 11.
Muni service changes started August 29, just before the month began, with frequency increases on the 1 California and the N Judah and larger buses on the 5R Fulton Rapid. Our rundown of the Muni changes covers the routes affected.
Muni single-ride tickets left the MuniMobile app on September 1. Single rides bought before that date stay valid for 30 days. After it, use Clipper, tap a chip-enabled bank card at a reader, pay cash on board, or buy at a Metro ticket machine. Muni-only day passes follow in January 2027. Our guide to the Muni payment changes has the full schedule.
Muni’s next 112 buses have USB charging ports, and the first of them enter service in October.
US-101 Hospital Curve closes northbound on one more September weekend: September 18 to 21. The September 4 to 7 closure has passed. Southbound closures follow in October. Details and the disagreement between Caltrans and SFMTA on the exact extent are in our closure explainer.
BART runs its Green Line weekend service on September 12 and 13 and again on September 26 and 27. See our Green Line weekend guide for what that changes for riders.
Portsmouth Square in Chinatown is closed and fenced for a rebuild that runs to 2028, and the Kearny Street footbridge over the square has been demolished, so that crossing between Chinatown and the Financial District is now at street level.
At the ocean end of the city, the Great Highway Extension south of Sloat Boulevard still carries northbound traffic only, and the seawall and dune project meant to replace it has been pushed back to a late 2029 construction start.
Downtown, the Recreation and Park Commission’s Capital Committee took up the naming of the new Embarcadero Park on September 2. The proposal would call the southern half Art Agnos Plaza and the northern half Sue Bierman Commons, with construction on the five-acre park starting late this year.
Labor Day was Monday, September 7. Several museums, including the de Young and the Legion of Honor, are normally closed on Mondays, so check hours before building a day around a gallery visit.
Looking Ahead to October
Several October events sell or fill up during September, so they are worth booking now. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass returns free to Golden Gate Park October 2 through 4. RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me opens October 3, with a weekday and weekend surcharge on top of admission. San Francisco Fleet Week runs October 4 through 12, with the air show October 9 through 11; the organizers published the performer lineup in early September and it is headed by the Blue Angels. The Asian Art Museum opens Vishnu’s Cosmic Ocean on October 23, and the California Academy of Sciences holds its SuperNatural Halloween party on October 24, with general admission tickets already on sale. The Portal, a nonprofit 45-seat arthouse cinema at 3293 Mission Street, says it opens in October, though it has not published a date inside the month.
Further out, the Legion of Honor opens Azzedine Alaïa: Sculpting Fashion on November 21, the first major US retrospective of the couturier, with 80 garments and pieces from his own historical collection.
Planning Notes
Two practical points about September here. First, the warm weather is real but it is not uniform: the Sunset and the Richmond stay cooler and greyer than the Mission and the eastern half of the city on the same afternoon, so dress for the neighborhood you will actually be in rather than the forecast. Second, the middle two weekends carry most of the month’s load. September 12 and 13 have the opera opening and Opera in the Park, September 19 and 20 have the Autumn Moon Festival, Muni Heritage Weekend, the Etruscans closing and both Valkyries home games, and September 26 and 27 have Portola. Hotel rates and restaurant bookings tighten on those dates.
The citywide backdrop is a tighter hotel market. San Francisco Travel puts occupancy at 70.7% this year and forecasts 72.1% next year, with the average room rate rising from $266.16 to $271.43; the numbers are in our summary of the 2027 tourism forecast.
For more, see our guides to things to do in San Francisco, the main attractions for first-timers, and the city’s major museums.
Photo: Dead.rabbit, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
