In early 1973 a comet named Kohoutek was predicted to be a giant comet dramatically visible from earth.
The hippies, who were apocalyptic at the core, began to anticipate Kohoutek and planned a large festival in San Francisco for the Fall of 1973. I was there, at the Civic Auditorium (later renamed). There were over 250 booths representing nearly every hippy organization and cohort. Well over 50,000 people attended in the few days the event was open.
One of the most amazing outcomes of this Kohoutek festival was Ann Howell, an older hippy with a Southern drawl, who got 78 organizations to sign-up for a repeat of the festival.
Ann, three years later, contacted this group of rag-tag hippy organizations to form a non-profit to take over the abandoned Army base at Fort Mason; Fort Mason Foundation. Ann submitted a bid for the site when public bids were being accepted to manage the property. Ann won. I couldn't believe it at the time.
Ann and her boy friend, Ralph, moved into one of the empty buildings (building B second floor) with nearly half a million square feet to rent and created the modern version of Fort Mason... the model for many urban arts centers in America and other parts of the world.