Confirm the date before you book anything
The Marigold Project has not published a 2026 date for its Festival of Altars. Its festival page carries a November 2, 2025 banner as of October 14, 2026, all five pages on the site hold no 2026 entry, and the organiser's contact address is info@themarigoldproject.org. November 2, 2026 falls on a Monday. A planner building an offsite on this festival should confirm the date with the organiser, and confirm it before any room request leaves the building.
The rest of the plan rests on the organiser's own published material. That material sets the day's clock and every rule that governs a team on the site.
The published clock
Installation begins at 8 a.m. Altars should be set up by 2 p.m. A high noon ceremony follows, and entertainment runs from 5 to 9 p.m. Clean-up begins promptly at 10 p.m.
A corporate team fits the daylight window. Check in at 8 a.m., build through the morning, break for the noon ceremony, finish the altar by the 2 p.m. target, and clear the site before the 5 p.m. entertainment block. The organiser writes the 2 p.m. target with a caveat, asking for the altar to be up by then "if possible" because some participants arrive from work, so a morning build carries a comfortable margin.
Check in at the Information Table
The Marigold Project staffs an Information Table at the benches in front of the playground. The organiser asks every altar builder to check in there, and it routes any concern raised by police, park rangers or another attendee to the same table. That is the team's first stop and its point of contact for the day.
The 12-inch plaque is the only signage allowed
The organiser states plainly that this is a noncommercial event. Name and organisation plaques on an altar run to a maximum of 12 inches long and 4 inches tall, and that cap is the whole allowance for team identity.
Three further rules set the kit a team may bring onto the site. Alcohol is not allowed, and the festival page describes the event as family-friendly, alcohol-free and designed for all ages. Amplified sound is not allowed. Electricity is not supplied, and a team that needs power brings a silent generator and notifies the organiser in advance.
What a build may use
Fire is not allowed. Candles decorate and illuminate the altars, and LED candles are preferred. Staking into the ground and digging are both barred because of irrigation lines under the grass. Only string may be hung from the trees, with no tacking or nailing into them. A minimum of one gallon of water must stand at each altar. Altars and candles stay out of the playground. The organiser asks teams to locate the trash, compost and recycle bins before they set up, because the park and the collectors fine the Marigold Project for anything left behind or placed in the wrong bin.
Participants bring flowers, 8-inch glass prayer candles and mementos of the people they are remembering. The organiser asks anyone who wants a reserved altar location to read the altar guidelines and sign up through the festival page, and to raise special requests with the Marigold Project in advance. It describes the site as fully accessible.
What a shared altar is
The festival has run in San Francisco since 1992, when a Mexican immigrant woman and a group of marginalized creators designed it. The Marigold Project places five community altars, one on each cardinal point and one at the centre. The east altar calls air and is given to ancestral children. The south calls fire and is given to ancestral youth. The west calls water and honours adults. The north honours the earth and the ancestors. The centre is given to self-love, to relationship, to community and to the universe. A team that takes one direction builds inside a structure the organiser has already set.
The Marigold Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, and it pays the indigenous practitioners, artists, poets, musicians and dancers who take part.
Rooms are a separate exercise
The organiser publishes no host hotel, no room block, no nightly rate and no cut-off date. No parking, shuttle or transit plan appears on the site either, and the park street address is absent from its pages. Those questions go to info@themarigoldproject.org and to the hotel desk.
For the rooms themselves, a group request through bookMyTeam covers 562 hotels in San Francisco and puts the dates to 50 or more properties at once. Submitting is free, the platform charges no markup, and responses arrive within 24 to 72 hours. Most hotels set a group rate at ten rooms or more per night, and the process takes one request.
