The Foundry is run by people from the teams that bring you The Faight, a community events venue in San Francisco's Lower Haight, and Same Same But Different Fest. We have spent years producing events and music around this city, and The Foundry, at 1425 Folsom Street at 10th in SoMa, is our new room.

Those years were spent on events built around a few things we care about: bringing people together, creating community, and holding space for people to express themselves. That is the work we know how to do, and The Foundry exists to keep doing it, every week, in a room of our own.

A big part of that is the art itself. We take real care over the music we book and the people we put in the booth, we make room on our bills for local talent, and we hold human-made art in the highest respect — the music, the visual work, and the craft behind both. When you see something hanging from our trusses or hear who is opening a night, someone here chose it and meant it.

The other part is the room people walk into. We want The Foundry to be safe and welcoming before it is anything else, and the way that actually happens is everyone in the room looking out for one another. Our Community Agreements put that in writing: respect each other, respect the floor, keep phones down, consent is key, express yourself, respect our neighbors. When you join us, we ask that you opt in: be present, look out for one another, and be part of something greater than the sum of us apart. The full text, and the zero-tolerance list behind it, is on our about page, and our staff are trained to remove anyone who violates it.

Holding space for expression is also why the dance floor is phone-free. People dance differently when nobody is filming them, and the whole point of the floor is that everyone in it is actually there.

The building gives us the space for all of it: a 1936 warehouse with high ceilings, exposed trusses, steel-sash windows, and a concrete floor. We reset it night to night for club nights and concerts, and for private events on other nights.

What is coming up is on the shows page. To the good nights ahead.