The Marigold Project stages the Dia de los Muertos Festival of Altars at Potrero Del Sol Park, which the organiser also calls La Raza Park, in the Mission District of San Francisco. The park sits in ZIP 94110, admission is free, and the festival is open to the public.
The organiser's festival page prints the day in one line: installation begins at 8am, the High Noon ceremony begins at 12pm, and entertainment begins at 5pm and runs to 9pm. That line is dated November 2, 2025, and no 2026 date appears on the five pages the site carries. Confirm the date with the organiser before you book against it.
Altar set-up runs 8am to 2pm
The Personal Altar Guidelines page publishes the set-up window. It reads: "SET UP 8 am - 2 pm please make sure that your altar is set up by 2 pm, if possible. We understand some people are coming from work." Clean-up begins promptly at 10pm. An information table sits at the benches in front of the playground, and the organisers ask altar builders to check in there.
The published day, hour by hour
Installation begins at 8am and the set-up window opens with it. The High Noon ceremony begins at 12pm. The set-up window closes at 2pm. Entertainment runs from 5pm to 9pm. Clean-up begins at 10pm.
Five hours sit in the middle
The ceremony starts at noon. Entertainment starts at 5pm. Five hours separate the two, and the organiser publishes nothing scheduled inside them. For a product designer, a copywriter or a strategist working the Mission District on the festival day, that stretch is the part of the day with no published programme.
hotelSlots sells four slots: Morning 6AM-12PM, Afternoon 12PM-6PM, Evening 6PM-12AM, and Overnight 12AM-6AM. The platform publishes 103,857+ hotels across 46 states, rates 30-75 percent below the nightly rate at the same hotel, and no booking fees. A Morning slot covers the 8am installation start and the whole set-up window, and it ends as the ceremony begins. An Afternoon slot opens with the ceremony and runs through the first hour of entertainment. Booking both gives a base from 6am to 6pm across a nine-hour festival day.
What the park rules publish
The guidelines page answers the practical questions. The festival is family-friendly, alcohol-free and designed for all ages, and the organiser states it is fully accessible to all attendees. Amplified sound is not allowed. Fire is not allowed. Electricity is not supplied, and anyone bringing a silent generator must notify the organisers in advance. Staking into the ground and digging are not allowed because irrigation lines run under the grass. Candles are welcome, with LED candles preferred. Each altar must have at least one gallon of water present. Only string may hang from the trees. The playground is off limits to altars and candles. SCRAPS, a nonprofit store at 801 Toland Street, San Francisco 94124, takes usable art materials and candles Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 4pm.
Mission District day rooms
The hotelSlots directory lists 562 San Francisco properties. Four carry ZIP 94110, the park's ZIP: Foundry Coliving at 550 Guerrero Street, Frances Hotel at 2084 Mission Street, Prita Hotel at 2284 Mission Street, and Union Hotel at 2030 Mission Street. All four sit about 1.1 to 1.3 miles from the park on a straight-line measure.
A read of the Dayuse San Francisco page on October 14, 2026 returned a city average of $119.61 for a day room and nine city-scoped cards from $85 to $159. Every one of those nine cards carries a downtown district label in its breadcrumb, and neither platform publishes a Mission day rate. The closest published rates are Hotel Bijou at $85 and The Mosser Hotel at $91, both in the downtown core. The downtown rate set is a commute figure for a Potrero Del Sol plan. Day rates move, so recheck before booking.
Bring for an altar
The organiser asks contributors to bring flowers, 8-inch glass prayer candles and mementos of loved ones for the community altars, and photos, candles and flowers are named as acceptable offerings. Altar space is reserved through a signup form on the festival page or by email to the Marigold Project. Five altar stations anchor the park: East for air and ancestral children, South for fire and ancestral youth, West for water and adults, North for earth and the ancestors, and Center for self-love and community. The organisers describe the festival as the work of a Mexican immigrant woman and a group of marginalized creators who designed it in San Francisco in 1992, and they place the ceremonies inside more than 2,500 years of Mesoamerican tradition. The Marigold Project is a 501(c)3 fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts.
