Silver Lake’s streetscape transforms each April not just for sunshine and patio brunches but for Off Sunset Festival, a vibrant celebration of kink, leather, queer identity, and local history. First held in 2013 as a farewell to the Sunset Junction Fair, Off Sunset has become one of L.A.’s most unapologetically queer cultural statements.
In 2025, the festival relocated from March to late April, welcoming milder weather and what organizers call a “better flow of energy.” The event spans a stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard just off Sunset Boulevard and features music, performance, booths, community space, and visibility for often marginalized subcultures.
But Off Sunset is more than spectacle. Its Community Grant Program supports local nonprofits organizations tackling housing, mental health, queer homelessness rooting the celebration in material action. In its lifetime, the festival has given more than $25,000 to groups like TransCanWork and Silverlake Conservatory of Music.
Silver Lake has long been a queer enclave. As gentrification creeps in, rent rises, and storefronts shift, Off Sunset reminds the city: queer history is not aesthetic. It is lineage, activism, survival. The festival is both memory marker and claim staking: “This is who we were. This is who we are.”
In an L.A. that often commodifies identity, Off Sunset remains raw, local, grassroots. For attendees, it’s a pilgrimage, a house party, a community meeting and art show simultaneously. In doing so, it continues shaping Silver Lake’s soul, one leather strap at a time.
