Embrace ‘Pleasure in the Storm’ at the 2025 Spring National Queer Arts Festival
Save the Dates!
| Date & Time | Event Name | Location | Tickets |
| Thursday 5/22
7 – 9 pm |
LimitlessQueer Fashion Show |
Fluid 510 – 1544 Broadway, Oakland | Get tickets here! |
| Saturday 5/31
8 pm – 2am |
PachacutiBass, Ceremony, and Queer Futurism |
7th & West – 1255 7th St, Oakland | Get tickets here! |
| Thursday 6/5
6 – 9 PM |
A New World ComingCelebration of Queer Erotics & Revolutionary Archives |
Cone Shape Top – 4124 Broadway, Oakland CA | Get tickets here! |
| Sunday 6/8
Show 1: 6 pm Show 2: 7:30 pm |
UnfoldingMeditative Journey of Poetry & Sound exploring Black queer love |
Oakstop – Gaines Gallery Suite and Rooftop – 1740 Telegraph Ave, Oakland | Get tickets here! |
| Friday 6/13
7 – 10 PM |
Magical Realism: Queer Caribbean SoundsNQAF Closing Event |
SOMArts – 934 Brannan St, San Francisco, CA | Get tickets here! |
Mark your calendars! The Spring 2025 National Queer Arts Festival (our 28th annual festival!) returns May 22 through June 13, 2025—all events in-person and overflowing with embodied joy, radical imagination, and unapologetic art.
This season, we embrace the theme Pleasure in the Storm—a sensual, defiant, and visionary call to celebrate queer resilience in the face of chaos. Through the thunder and the tenderness, we gather to honor pleasure as a tool for resistance, rest, and radical reclamation.
In the eye of political and cultural storms, our festival becomes a sanctuary—a place to laugh, cry, dance, rage, heal, and dream together. Join us in this electric convergence as we revel in the power of queer creativity to disrupt, delight, and transform.
The National Queer Arts Festival proudly centers Queer, Trans, Gender Nonconforming, Intersex, Two-Spirit, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (QTI2SBIPOC) artists, uplifting the brilliance and beauty of their work. This spring, come experience the art that moves through the storm—and finds pleasure in the downpour.
ABOUT THE NATIONAL QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL
Our signature program is the National Queer Arts Festival (NQAF), a twice-a-year multidisciplinary festival held in the Spring and Fall seasons throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Each year we commission over twenty performances, visual arts exhibitions, and interdisciplinary showcases and in the process, we support hundreds of artists and production crews.
Since 1998, NQAF has presented more than 800 different events that have featured more than 2,300 LGBTQ+ artists including Bill T. Jones, Heklina, Alice Walker, Robert Rauschenberg, Meredith Monk, Adrienne Rich, Marga Gomez, Justin Chin, Thom Gunn, Cherrie Moraga and Dorothy Allison. Many artists find their start at the festival. NQAF is the longest continuously-running queer arts festival in North America.
2025 Spring National Queer Arts Festival Catalog
The 2025 Spring National Queer Arts Festival is more than just our two anchor events – we have a brilliant variety of Community Partner events ranging from queer choral celebrations to non-binary performance cabarets throughout the months of May and Jube. The Spring 2025 NQAF Catalog is here! Check out all the details about our own events as well as our community partners’!
VOLUNTEER with the National Queer Arts Festival!
Sign up to be a volunteer and help QCC bring joy to our community!
Volunteering at NQAF is easy, fun, and a great way to give back to your local Queer Arts Community. We also want to make your volunteer experience meaningful and allow you opportunities to engage with people and content that matters most to you. Volunteers will be acknowledged on stage, will get to stay and enjoy Queer Art/Performance after their shift, and will receive free tickets for another NQAF event of their choice. Successful volunteers will also be eligible to request a letter of recommendation.
QCC is seeking volunteers to serve as 1) Greeters, 2) Ushers/Runners, and 3) Box Office Support at one or more NQAF events (dates, times, and locations listed below). Volunteers will also help clean up at the end of the event. Training will be provided the day of the event.
National Queer Arts Festival ACCESSIBILITY Info
QCC’s aim is to produce a festival where folks can participate in a manner that feels safe and good to each individual preference. Our in-person events range from intimate immersive performances to large concerts. At our events, masking is *MANDATORY* for all in-door experiences. We will have masks and hand-sanitizer on-hand.
ASL interpretation is available for only specific in-person events and by request. Check each event’s individual Eventbrite for their accessibility information. If you are interested in attending an event and require ASL interpretation, please send your request to production@queerculturalcenter.org.
It’s important to us that ALL of our events are economically accessible. We have NOTAFLOF (No One Turned Away For Lack Of Funds) tickets available for every event so you can attend no matter your income.
NQAF events will be photographed or filmed. By attending, you consent to potentially appearing in event documentation and promotional materials. Please let box office staff know if you need a “media-free” tag for the event.
FUNDERS
Queer Cultural Center would like to thank our 28th Annual National Queer Arts Festival sponsors and community partners:
California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission and Bill Graham Memorial Foundation
Queer Cultural Center can offer vital support to LGBTQ2S+ communities in the Bay Area thanks to the generosity of:
Ruth Foundation for the Arts
Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation
Fleishhacker Foundation
The Walter & Elise Haas Fund
Individual community members like you!
Thank you to our community partners, sponsors, and venues!
