{"id":311410,"date":"2026-05-12T03:52:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T03:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/311410\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T03:52:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T03:52:33","slug":"oaklands-first-fridays-festival-could-end-after-sponsors-pull-support-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/311410\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland’s First Fridays festival could end after sponsors pull support"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oakland’s First Fridays street festival is at risk of ending after several sponsors pulled their support, according to multiple<\/a> reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The event, which started in 2013, has been marred by violence and negative publicity recently, even though the incidents occurred outside the festival area and hours.<\/p>\n

In March, two people were killed<\/a> and five others were injured in a shooting at the\u00a0EZ’s Lounge in downtown Oakland on 14th Street hours after the First Fridays festival ended.<\/p>\n

Last Saturday, seven people, including one juvenile, were hurt after a car plowed into a crowd<\/a> in the 500 block of 18th Street about 1:30 a.m., also hours after the event’s 9:30 p.m. closing time.<\/p>\n

Venessa McGhee, director of the nonprofit KONO that has operated the event, told\u00a0KTVU that these recent incidents could put at\u00a0end to the festival, which is supposed to “celebrate the vibrant art, culture, and community of Oakland<\/a>,” after\u00a0several sponsors have withdrawn their support.<\/p>\n

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee told KRON, “I want to be clear: These incidents occurred later in the evening, after the Oakland First Fridays events had officially concluded. We will continue to work with stakeholders to make the necessary strategic decisions to determine a path forward.”<\/p>\n

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This article originally published at Oakland’s First Fridays festival could end after sponsors pull support<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oakland’s First Fridays street festival is at risk of ending after several sponsors pulled their support, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[8520,80154,143,145,144,130514],"class_list":["post-311410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-downtown-oakland","tag-first-fridays","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-thomas-hawk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}