About Us

Fort Mason Center is a waterfront destination for thought provoking programs, events and organizations which support and reflect the evolving cultural fabric of San Francisco and the Bay Area. An exceedingly vital cultural resource within San Francisco, the campus occupies 13 acres of waterfront and consists of buildings, piers and open space within the Golden Gate National Park, a division of the National Park Service.

The Center’s many venues total 130,000 square feet and provide much needed raw, flexible space for a variety of uses and users. Interior spaces can be easily transformed for events of every type and interest imaginable, including; wine tastings, gala parties, film festivals, roller derby, weddings and symposia. The range of events that directly serve residents of the region is unparalleled, allowing the Center to stand apart from larger-scale convention facilities that cater to out-of-town guests. With a rich patina, Fort Mason Center also stands in contrast to more polished venues like the de Young Museum, Ferry Building, or the California Academy of Sciences for example, all wonderful in their own right. Imbued with history Fort Mason Center is rare as a San Francisco destination that doesn’t have a corporate or branded feeling, a draw for many people.

Fort Mason Center hosts more than 15,000 events each year, produced by close to 2,000 different organizations and individuals, in a broad range of conference, meeting, and activity, theater, and pavilion-style spaces available for rent by both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. Many cities have a symphony, an opera, museums and a zoo, but only San Francisco has Fort Mason Center, where the magnificent diversity of the Bay Area is so well represented.

The Fort Mason Center campus also serves as home to resident nonprofit organizations which provide a stable source of public programs. Current resident organizations include: BATS Improv, Blue Bear School of Music, SFMOMA Artists Gallery, Long Now Museum & Gallery, Magic Theatre, California Lawyers for the Arts, Book Bay Bookstore, Greens Restaurant, City College of San Francisco Art Campus, Lily Cai Dance Company, Environmental Traveling Companions, Ploughshares Fund, Resource Renewal Institute, World Arts West, San Francisco Children’s Art Center, Radio Bilingue, Young Performer’s Theatre and the Museo ItaloAmericano.

The Golden Gate National Parks

One of the largest and most popular urban national parks in the world, the Golden Gate National Parks were established in 1972, as part of efforts to make national parks more accessible to city dwellers and bring “parks to the people.” The parks’ 75,500 acres of land and water extend north across the Golden Gate Bridge to Tomales Bay in Marin County and south to San Mateo County.

The parks contain many historical and cultural sites in addition to Fort Mason Center - among them, Alcatraz, Muir Woods National Monument and the Presidio of San Francisco. With 19 unique ecosystems in seven distinct watersheds, five National Historic Landmarks and 61 archeological sites the parks preserve a wealth of natural and historic treasures.