Over a dozen people gathered in a driveway in the city’s Bayview neighborhood on Saturday to participate in the Bayview Conefest, a mysterious event that caught the attention of visitors and residents in the neighborhood.

Conefest was conceived by friends Jordan Zagerman and Daniel Clayton. Clayton, along with his wife Saba Nafees, hosted the event outside of their house on Shafter Avenue, where other residents have a reputation for lining the street with cones to block off parking spots in front of their homes. 

“It creates a friction in something that’s already difficult because these cars are too big,” Clayton said. “If there’s one message I really want to get [across] from this satirical event, it’s that we’ve really got to be conscious of the public commons.”

Orange cones of different sizes bordered the grassroots event, which took a couple people away from San Francisco’s Portola Festival nearby. Curious attendees were greeted with little toy traffic cones, orange and red snow cones made by men in reflective safety vests and summer tunes played off a portable speaker. The event gave the feeling of a classic American summer cookout, with a lot more neon orange than usual. 

Zagerman, a former San Francisco State University student, began these local events in July with Benchfest in his home neighborhood of Potrero Hill, which was a celebration of the return of a missing bench in the area. He followed up with a community movie night called On the Rocks, where they projected “2001: A Space Odyssey” onto a rocky hill face. Much like Conefest, the other two events were advertised with very little information, but enough to intrigue people to show up. 

“At this point, I had a routine to some degree. I knew, keep it broad, keep it kind of fun, confusing with the posters and put them up real early,”  Zagerman said.

Yesenia Duran, a friend of the Conefest creators, lives in the Marina district and has seen a similar phenomenon of illegal cones on the streets. 

“It was just kind of a joke until three days ago,” Duran said. “They sent me a flyer that they created and said, ‘OK, it’s happening. It’s this weekend.’”

While the joke of it all initially caught people’s eyes, the message was what brought them together.

“People are putting cones or things like this outside of the house to either reserve parking or prevent others from parking, even though it’s a public street,” Duran said. “I think that’s why I felt so passionate about Conefest and bringing attention to it, because it’s an issue that is happening here as well as in other parts of the city.”

The goal at hand with Conefest is one that the creators and attendees all agreed could be accomplished through community. 

“People also forget there’s problems right here in our neighborhood that can be immediately solved if we are communicating with each other in an open and kind way,” Clayton said.

Clayton had the idea of driving around the neighborhood in the middle of the night and taking the cones off the streets, but the two organizers decided it was the “wrong way to meet your neighbors,” and that it would be “more fun to lean into it.”

“This event first started as a rant that I had,” said Clayton, who has lived in the Bayview for the last four years. “Jordan was doing this event called Benchfest, and so my cone rant turned into a Conefest.” 

Zagerman had more of a mental health take on the event. He works remotely as a designer for a medical company in New York and spends most of his days at the local public library or the Bayview Community Center. That work routine gave him the motivation to join and create more social spaces.

“I just felt like there was so much more noise and distraction from what you could actually do if you just focused on something long term and actually got out of your house and talked with people.”

Conefest materialized with the help of the public library printers that Zagerman loves to use, and word began to spread on Reddit. 

“Weeks back, we saw our first cone sign sighting,” said attendee Jarrett O’Brien, who came with his newborn. “It was one of those moments where it struck you that something big was going to happen. There was change afoot.” 

Clayton connected with Oakland-based musician Cody Choi to play live music from out of his garage for the whole neighborhood to hear. Choi arrived with their own cone and cone hat to play their original music. 

“I definitely love a self-made kind of event run by a community of people fighting for a cause,” Choi said. “I appreciate a traffic cone when it stops me from going into a ditch. Don’t really like when people put traffic cones in the middle of the road.”

Clayton, who is from Lubbock, Texas, said, “In a lot of ways, this kind of neighborhood vibe I’m used to.” 

To Clayton and the others who attended the inaugural Conefest, it was a success.

“We got some people from the neighborhood here,” Clayton said. “Hit up my buddy Cody. They came out, they played some tunes. It’s just a great afternoon.”