About that Sunday, June 24, SF Opera Götterdämmerung Performance

I'm looking at SFO's Ring Festival Guide, a handy brochure that's packed full of practical information about attending operas at the War Memorial Opera House.

The last two pages are taken up with "Getting to the Opera House," definitely useful if you're an out-of-towner. There is a tiny, tiny note as follows at the bottom of page 8:

Shuttle is not available for the Cycle 2 Götterdämmerung on Sunday, June 24.

Oh, dear.

The shuttle in question is the Chariot shuttle that does pickup at Civic Center BART and dropoff at the Opera House before performances, reversing that after performances.

The note is...incomplete. The reason the shuttle won't be available is that Civic Center Plaza and a couple of blocks around its circumference will be completely impassable on Sunday afternoon, June 24, because about a half-million people will be crammed in there celebrating GLBTIA Pride Day.

Everybody at SFO, gay or straight, is aware of this, because there is always a performance on Pride Sunday. Perhaps the mob scene should be discreetly noted on this page in the brochure? If you're on foot, you need to allow 20 extra minutes, maybe more, to get to the opera house.

It is true that SFO does send out email a couple of days before Pride Sunday to known ticketholders, so that'll help, but I'm in favor of heavy documentation, so I'd put it in the brochure....and in the Siegfried program, as an insert. Yeah, half the audience will faint because they're worried that Irene Theorin or Daniel Brenna is sick, but they'll recover.