Sunset Junction Street Fair a.k.a. Scenester Takeover a.k.a. Classist Exclusion

Because the Sunset Junction is this weekend:

I recall a Sunset Junction street fair entrance volunteer's off-putting—bordering on aggressive—approach at attempting to make me pay the 'suggested' donation of $7 back in 2004. Of course, I refused and went in anyway. But the discomfort lingered and soured my mood for the initial part of my time there. Little did I know that that particular year's fair logistics and ambiance presaged what was to come in 2006. Although,in retrospect, I did perceive that something had changed - and I couldn't quite put my finger on it – that made that particular year unsettling, something that didn’t allow me to have as much fun as I did in previous years.

Upon learning of the changes to the Sunset Junction fair, I was immediately upset, admittedly mostly because I was like, "Damn, now I'm gonna have pay a whole lotta money just to get in," without taking the social/elitist implications of the changes into consideration.

In “good ol’” ’06, my friend’s band played at the Bates stage, located about a block-and-a-half away from my family's apartment. After they played, however, the deeper into the fair territory I got, I noticed little by little the different crowd, the decline of quality rides, the high entrance cost - it lost its family-friendly appeal. Needless to say, as an ensemble, the fair was disappointing, to say the least. Sure, certain people say "$12 is a bargain to see all these bands, so stop complaining!" Yes. Because everyone goes specifically to see those particular bands; because everyone has the same music tastes; because everyone can afford to shell out $12 to enter a fair in their own neighborhood. The organizers of the fair seem to believe that the negative effects of the fair in terms of parking, traffic and drunken loud fools seem to be confined to the areas within a block radius of Sunset Boulevard; think again, try to walk as far as 5 blocks, folks.

In short, with the new "VIP lounge,” the huge increase in scenesters, the Sunset Junction street fair has officially sold out, to take the phrase from another blogger (credit is given to you, blogger whose username I forget). Yes, the Sunset Junction Street Fair is no longer for the entire community. What began as an event to bring the old-time residents with the incoming residents of a different demographic, has been exploited. Gentrification, to put it bluntly, has forced many low-income residents to have to search for housing in less expensive parts of the city, or even outside of the L.A. Basin. The fair is now exclusively catering to the tastes of professional-middle or upper-middle class hipsters/scenesters that have moved in to the neighbordhood and even more to the scenester kids outside of the East Hollywood/Silver Lake/Echo Park/Los Feliz area. I realize that gentrification is not altogether a bad thing, as it does have positive effects; but it has very negative consequences that can be mitigated. The new institutional changes done to the fair is a very good example of such negative consequences. I used to love seeing the incredible mix of people; now the fair’s crowd seems to be homogenizing as the years go by. The different scenes (i.e. "leather" gays from old Silver Lake, among others), and “ethnic” folks are now no more than tokens to be used to promote the “diversity” of the increasingly sterilized fair.

Of course, these “types,” if I may be allowed to stereotype for the purposes of this entry, are as much a part of the neighborhood as anyone else, so it’s not an issue of ownership. But these new changes blatantly exclude an important demographic from the neighborhood, be it in the Silver Lake, East Hollywood or Franklin Hills side, whose parking and traffic is directly impacted by the fair: the working-class, immigrant person or family.

I’m glad to hear that there'll be a Sunset Junction Street Fair post-mortem. It will be a good venue to express the concerns certain neighbors have. As a self-proclaimed progressive person, I do realize that things do change, so lets do it right.