Outside Lands finds its rhythm for 10th festival
In a city accustomed to big anniversaries, 10 years might not seem like a long time. But for the promoters of the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, it’s a milestone worth celebrating.
As corporate promoters like LiveNation and AEG have gobbled up events like the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, Lollapalooza and BottleRock Napa, Outside Lands stands as the largest independently operated music festival in the country — a co-production of Berkeley’s Another Planet Entertainment and New York’s Superfly marketing company.
The annual three-day concert that draws an
estimated 210,000 people to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park each August (Friday-next Sunday this year) has overcome a formidable list of challenges in its first decade to become part of the fabric of the city, while appeasing local officials, neighborhood groups and discerning music fans from around the world.
Few expected Outside Lands to make it past its inaugural edition in 2008, which featured British alternative rock band Radiohead performing the first afterdark concert in Golden Gate Park. Neighbors complained about the noise; the headlining set was plagued by powersupply problems; congestion stymied both cars and pedestrians, there were long lines and gatecrashers, and a tragic miscalculation of where to place the portable toilets.
Gregg Perloff, CEO of Another Planet, said it took months of planning and negotiations to get a permit to bring the festival back to the park for a second year, even after it brought in $815,000 for the cash-strapped Recreation and Park Department. Since then, his staff has worked to keep Outside Lands running smoothly.
“We had a lot of resistance early on,” Perloff said. “It really took four years to establish the festival. Starting in our fifth year, we really got our sea legs, and things were different. We became part of the community. People in the Richmond and Sunset districts really embraced it. It’s the opposite of NIMBY-ism.”
Each year, the festival turns a swath of land on the west end of Golden Gate Park into a vibrant playland. Beyond the music — and there’s music everywhere — there are a variety of attractions, from a comedy club and art installations to a farmers’ market and wine tasting tent; an array of food vendors and countless sponsored cabanas offering haircuts, charging stations and makers activities to keep the masses buzzing.
This year, the festival has grown in both size and scope, with more than 100 musical acts on more than six stages across the Polo Field, Hellman Hollow and Speedway Meadow; while the comedy programming, including more that two dozen performers, has expanded into Marx Meadow.
Outside Lands also shines a spotlight on Bay Area makers, from the abundant food and drink offerings created by local chefs and mixologists, to the featured artists who decorate the grounds and fill out the smaller stages.
“You can’t underestimate the value of a beautiful park setting located in the heart of the city,” said Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of the concert industry publication Pollstar.
And that is exactly what sets Outside Lands apart from other festivals: its unique location, set in a gorgeous expanse of green amid San Francisco’s uncommonly chilly summer weather, where the fog almost always blankets the festival grounds before the sun sets.
“It’s a beautiful setting with good vibes all around,” said Yukimi Nagano, lead singer of the Swedish pop band Little Dragon, who performed at the festival in 2011 and will return this year. “San Francisco is one of our favorite cities. It can be quite a magical Outside Lands: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday-next Sunday. $149.50-$375. Golden Gate Park, S.F. www. sfoutsidelands.com
Listen to The Chronicle’s Outside Lands 2017 playlist online and keep up with our team of reporters during the three-day festival: www.sfchronicle.com/ outside-lands experience to see your idols on the stage as the thick Pacific fog rolls in and gets up your nostrils.”
Among the stars who have performed on its main stage under the century-old canopy of trees on the Polo Field are Paul McCartney, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Kanye West, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (twice). There are also the acts who worked their way up from playing smaller, daytime sets in the meadows to headliner status, like the Black Keys, the National and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.
But the festival’s success doesn’t hinge on familiar names. It’s the artists further down the bill who don’t qualify as major attractions, but still find massive crowds waiting for them.
“For us, it’s always pushing it and making it better,” said Allen Scott, vice president of Another Planet. “The audience at Outside Lands expects a lot. We work hard to curate a festival for the Bay Area and the entire festival landscape.”
This year, the lineup includes Summer of Love -era rock act the Who, making its only U.S. festival appearance; a rare festival set by virtual hip-hop band Gorillaz, who recently released its first new album in six years, “Humanz”; and returning headliners Metallica, taking a detour from a run of stadium dates to play its hometown fest. Other performers include Lorde, A Tribe Called Quest, Empire of the Sun, the Avett Brothers and Cage the Elephant, brought in as a lastminute replacement for Queens of the Stone Age (out because of an unspecified injury, according to a tweet on July 31).
“We tried to get Lady Gaga this year, but unfortunately she chose to do her own show,” said Perloff. Gaga is headlining at AT&T Park on Sunday, Aug. 13.
Another Planet’s initial agreement with the city included paying for a full-time gardener at $89,000 per year and an additional $15,000 annually to repair the polo fields. After this year’s festival, Another Planet will have paid the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department more than $20 million as part of its agreement (11 percent of the gross revenue, plus $1.25 per ticket sold).
“This is a big undertaking, but Another Planet gets it,” said Phil Ginsburg, the department’s general manager. “They care for the park, they hire local workers, they use local restaurants and vendors, and they are responsive to community concerns.”
And the festival brings significant economic benefits to the city and its parks, he noted.
A 2011 economic impact report on the festival, conducted by Patrick Tierney of San Francisco State University, concluded that it generated approximately $61 million annually through increased regional sales, personal income and jobs.
Perloff said a followup study from last year puts that number closer to $75 million. The festival creates the equivalent of 2,500 full-time jobs each year, paying a prevailing wage and hiring union stage hands exclusively — all without the benefit of corporate backing.
“We are genuinely a local company,” Perloff said. “We take really seriously the idea of people being paid fairly. We pay our taxes. We pay really good rent. We listen to what the city wants us to do.”
But there have been a few problems over the years. There were three reports of sex assaults during the festival in 2012; arrests for battery charges, gatecrashers and, particularly, counterfeit wristbands, that resulted in an armed kidnapping in 2015 — the same year the performer Fantastic Negrito received a citation for illegally selling VIP passes to the event.
In 2016, Another Planet introduced wristbands with radio frequency identification to help curb the bootleggers, and allowed people to use the wristbands instead of credit cards and paper money for purchases.
“As a community, we have expectations for good neighbor efforts and policies so that the event can be both enjoyable and respectful to our neighborhood,” said Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer, who represents the Richmond District on the north side of the park.
“The biggest challenge is minimizing impact to the Sunset and Richmond neighborhoods during the festival and its set-up and breakdown,” Ginsburg said. “A special event like this can’t happen without some level of inconvenience and impact on normal park usage and neighborhood circulation.
“Most nearby residents understand that great cities do great things and are very tolerant. One of my favorite emails was from a neighbor thanking me for allowing her to enjoy Elton John with her husband from her open living room window.”
Having kept the neighbors happy to get to its 10th anniversary, Another Planet hopes for many more years of Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park.
“Our goal when we started was to build this into a San Francisco institution,” Scott said. “We want Outside Lands to be part of the city for 20, 30, 40 years and beyond. We want peoples’ kids to go to this.”