Local neon historians Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan are available for neon talks, tours, video screenings, and/or photo exhibits. Neon talks can be customized to connect with audiences on many levels: science, art, popular culture, design, typography, city history, and the growing national movement to preserve and appreciate landmark neon signs.

Contact us (sfneonbook@gmail.com) to schedule an online neon event, talk, tour, or screening.

Neon event partners in include: American Alliance of Museums, American Sign Museum, Art Deco Society of California, APA, Atlas Obscura, Balboa Theater, California Historical Society, California Preservation Foundation, Chinese Historical Society of America, Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt, Cooper Union Type West, Dear Community, Excelsior Action Group, Exploratorium Museum, International Association of Lighting Designers, Letterform Archive, LGBQ Historical Society, Mechanics Institute Library, Museum of Neon Art, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Noir City Film Festival, Type Camp, Nerd Nite EB, Nerd Nite SF, Petaluma Arts Center, Petaluma Signs Project, Portola Neighborhood Association, Queer Arts Featured Gallery, RayKo Photography Center Gallery, Roxie Cinema, San Francisco City Guides, SF Design Week, San Francisco Film Preservation, San Francisco Heritage, San Francisco History Association, San Francisco History Days, San Francisco Public Library, Shaping San Francisco, Society for Experiential Graphic Design SF, Tenderloin Museum, TypeCon, and Western Neighborhoods Project.

SAVE THE DATES FOR 2026
Reno: Sept 11, 12 & 13
San Francisco: Sept 19
Oakland: Sept 20

Annual Neon Speaks Symposium & Festival, San Francisco/Oakland has presented online and in-person events at these great venues: Museum of Neon Art, Neon Works, Great American Music Hall, Verdi Club, Letterform Archive, and Tenderloin Museum,

Thanks to everyone for being part of Neon Speaks over the years for a curated collection of neon talks, demos, case studies, restoration tips, shop tours, walking tours, book signings, films, and action planning for creating a future where neon survives and thrives…

Featured artists and exhibitors in the past events:
Bill Concannon, Morgan Crook, Sarah Blood, Heather David, Dydia DeLyser & Paul Greenstein, Will Durham, Nevada Neon Museum, Robert Haus, Dannielle James, Greg King, Ames Palms, Shawna Peterson, Roxy Rose Score, Michael Flechtner, Bruce Suba, Tod Swormstedt, American Sign Museum, Adam Taylor, Neon Craft Guild, and Stuart Ziff.

Photo: Paula Wirth

Thanks to everyone who joined us for this illuminating talk at Queer Arts Featured on Castro Street (the old Harvey Milk camera store). In the 1960s–70s SF gay bars went above ground and announced themselves with neon signs. We featured neon bar fronts in the GLBQ Historical Soceity collection of photographs by Henri Leleu. Henri methodically captured photographs of these queer spaces in a similar photo documentary style of Eugene Atet and Bernice Abbot. Presented by Jim Van Buskirk with guests Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan of SF Neon. In proud partnership with the Tenderloin Museum. Twin Peaks photo: Al Barna

Cinematic San Francisco Neon

This event has been presented at Neon Speaks, Tenderloin Museum, Roxie Theater, and SF Historical Association

This program shines a light on the electric beauty of our city after dark. Neon takes the spotlight in this illustrated talk of movie clips exploring San Francisco’s luminous role in film history. Join us for an illuminating evening where the city itself becomes a character on screen—from the green neon fog of VERTIGO to the glowing Chinatown streets of THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI. Presented by SF Neon’s Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan with Jim Van Buskirk.

Photo: Still from Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock

Neon and Silent Film in the Tenderloin

Presented at the beautiful and historic Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell St. San Francisco.

A rare chance to hear exciting history talks and see the streets (and cable cars) of 1922 San Francisco in the short silent film Day Dreams. Directed by and starring the maestro of mirth Buster Keaton (plus a bonus short silent film by Keaton: One Week). Step back into the silent‑film era when the Tenderloin anchored San Francisco’s cinema culture. Experience Richard Marriott’s Club Foot Quintet performing original scores to Buster Keaton’s One Week (1920) and Day Dreams (1922)—the latter a filmed-in-SF classic and featuring the premiere of Marriott’s freshly composed live score. Enjoy expert presentations including the Tenderloin’s early film exchanges from Kathy Rose O’Regan of San Francisco Film Preserve. Al Barna and Randall An Homan of SF Neon explore the intersection between the invention of neon, silents, and talkies and a look at the heyday of movie palaces on Market Street with film historian Jim Van Buskirk. Co-presented by Tenderloin Museum and San Francisco Film Preserve.

ART OF NEON

Petaluma Arts Center
We ventured up to Sonoma County for a neon talk at the Petaluma Arts Center! This is a new talk to showcase neon artists and make the case that vintage neon signs are works of art.

Presented by SF Neon and the Tenderloin Museum this evening features a series of slide presentations and discussions to explore neon’s various forms and functions in Warsaw, Havana, and San Francisco. Featuring slides of Cuban neon from Tenderloin Museum Executive Director Katie Conry’s and Steven Spiegel of Signs United’s recent trips to Havana. SF Neon will give an overview of the current projects to restore vintage neon in San Francisco. Following the slide presentations will be a screening of NEON, Eric Bednarski’s award-winning documentary on the neonization of Warsaw and Poland in the Cold War era. In this gorgeous film, Bednarski uncovers the remarkable Polish neon design of 1960s and 1970s in Warsaw.

Typecon is produced by the Society of Typographic Aficionados. We were honored that SF Neon was invited to present in the same conference with so many type luminaries: Nina Stossinger, Louise Fili, Paul Shaw, the list is long.

And how much fun to be co-hosts on the Electric Letterland Portland Neon walking tour for #Typecon2018. It is always illuminating to work on a project with @katewiddows! We met 20 cool typographers on the tour, and learned so much @typecon. Logo design: Kate Widdows

From the flashing signs of tourist traps to the forgotten signs whose ghostly white tubes remain unlit, neon signs represent a bridge from past to the future. Join SF Neon founders, Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan, with typography guru Shelley Gruendler for a journey to examine some of the most fascinating neon sign survivors and preservation projects in the Bay Area. Rare neon books and smaple cases on display courtesy of Dydia DeLyser and Paul Greenstein.

SF Design Week | Tenderloin Museum

Market Street Movie Marquees: Neon Nirvana

This event has been presented at Neon Speaks, Tenderloin Museum, SF Heritage, Roxie Theater, SF Historical Association, and Fromm Institute.

Between the 1930s–1960s, Market Street was home to a dense collection of cinemas between 5th and 10th Streets, with extravagant neon marquees and projecting signs. All but three of these movie theaters are now closed, and several of them were demolished; now it is a treasure hunt to discover these beautiful and mostly bygone neon signs where San Francisco’s movie-lovers gathered from the near-by Tenderloin, Union Square shops, and beyond. Enter neon nirvana and spend an evening with Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan of SF Neon with Jim Van Buskirk (Celluloid San Francisco).

Nerd Nite SF covers the spectrum! We’ll get a handle on comparative brain science from a neuroscientist, and then actually handle real brains. Next, expert illumination on the art, craft, and history of neon in the Bay Area. Finally, a physicist will help us see the light on dark matter. All this, plus the colorful DJ stylings of Alpha Bravo, drinks of all stripes, and a crowd of bright people like you.

Nerd Nite SF | Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street SF

If you were on the list for Atlas Obscura events in San Francisco, then you had the first chance to join these sold-out tours of historic neon signs, back stories and back alleys included. We were thrilled that Atlas Obscura invited us to be part of their local learning event series, SF history via vintage neon signs.

Atlas Obscura Neon Chinatown Walking Tour
YMCA 855 Sacramento Street San Francisco

Photo: Charles Chapman

Oakland Mayor promotes neon restoration! We had a surprise visit from Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, posing here with Jim and Kate Rizzo. Jim and Kate graciously hosted a neon event at Neon Works HQ, organized by Bart Bernhardt for Atlas Obscura. We did our neon preservation talk, Jim gave a fascinating tour of his shop and personal sign collection, then Libby Cahill gave and expert tube-bending demo. It was so much fun we would love to do it again for our mailing list subscribers, stay posted. The time is ripe for an Oakland neon renaissance, and Mayor Schaaf told us she wants to find a way to illuminate vintage neon in her city… We are working with Oakland neon advocates and the mayor’s community engagement office to create a series of neon bike tours in Oakland for 2018. Please let us know if you have a favorite vintage neon sign in Oakland! Check out this awesome resource: a map of Oakland vintage signs from the prolific Our Oakland blog by Gene Anderson.

Atlas Obscura Neon Works Shop Tour

NeonWorks, 967 Grace Avenue, Oakland

How have neon signs influenced the landscape of our city? How does a unique neon sign evolve from advertising to art? Join us for an afternoon exploring these questions with San Francisco Neon authors Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan plus special guest speaker Avery Trufelman of 99 Percent Invisible/Radiotopia.

San Francisco Public Library | Saturday 12/10/16 | 2 PM
San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin Street
in the beautiful Koret Auditorium, lower level | Free

San Francisco Public Library exhibition in the music and arts section in the summer of

View all the exhibition photos on Flickr.

We will be signing books and screening neon-focused footage from the Prelinger Archive, and a supercut of neon signs featured in classic Hollywood films. 6-10 pm: galleries and bar open and San Francisco Neon book signing and neon focused-footage screenings. 8 pm: scientific presentation on neon, the featured element from the an ongoing series called Everything Matters: Tales from the Periodic Table. Come be in your elements with Exploratorium host and scientific raconteur Ron Hipschman.

EXPLORATORIUM  Pier 15 , Embarcadero at Green Street, SF

We will be signing books for the opening of the San Francisco Neon exhibit at the Rayko Photography Center Gallery, a community hub for San Francisco photographers. View exhibition photos on Flickr.

Exhibit dates: August-November 2015
428 Third Street SF | Free

The Noir City film fest is always a packed to the rafters annual 10-day event at the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco. We are thrilled that Film Noir Foundation founder, Eddie Muller, invited us to be part of Noir City and screen our video essay Stolen Moments, a cinematic homage to neon and noir.

Noir City Film Festival 14
Castro Theatre 429 Castro Street SF