Portola fest apologizes over noise complaints

The organizers of the Portola Festival, which was held last month at San Francisco’s Pier 80, have replied to a series of noise complaints by sending letters to Bay Area residents apologizing for the “disturbance” and promising to do better next time.

“We did receive some complaints on the SF side of the bay, but most complaints received were from across the bay in different areas of Alameda,” Darren Carroll, community relations manager for the festival’s promoter Goldenvoice, wrote in a letter dated Tuesday, Oct. 4, obtained by The Chronicle.

The two-day concert, which ran Sept. 24-25, got off to a rocky start in its first year, with some members of the audience complaining about a few chaotic scenes and an overall lack of organization. Numerous videos shared on social media showed fans clambering over the barricades to get to the festival’s main stage inside a 400,000square-foot warehouse.

Carroll’s letter acknowledges the promoter’s lack of experience in running a festival in the Bay Area, noting that it did not properly anticipate how sound travels across the region. Goldenvoice has been the longtime producers of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and the Stagecoach Festival in Southern California.

“Needless to say, we will need to do more technical strategizing on ways to mitigate sound travel and increase our radius of community outreach, if we plan to return,” he said.

Goldenvoice did not return The Chronicle’s request for additional comment.

The Portola Festival was hosted at Pier 80, the city’s primary cargo terminal — a 60-acre facility with two warehouses — at 401 Cesar Chavez St. The performances took place in tents labeled the Ship Tent and Crane Tent as well as inside a 400,000-square-foot warehouse that has also been the site of an emergency homeless shelter in the past.

The San Francisco skyline served as the backdrop for the outdoor main Pier Stage, which faced east toward Alameda across the bay and featured headliners Flume and Chemical Brothers. Other electronic music acts on the bill included Toro y Moi, James Blake, Kaytranada, Jamie xx, Jungle, Charli XCX, Neil Frances, Caribou and Fatboy Slim, among others.

In August, Green Day’s performance at this year’s Outside Lands festival in Golden Gate Park also drew noise complaints from across the city, and high-profile outdoor concerts at other local venues, especially Oracle Park, have caused similar problems.

Apart from the multitude of noise complaints at the Portola Festival, there were no arrests reported over the weekend, according to the San Francisco Police Department. “The majority of issues on which we assisted were medical in nature,” Officer Robert Rueca told The Chronicle on Sept. 26. “Our officers also assisted with traffic issues and we are aware of complaints related to the music, which we will be addressing with the event coordinator.”

Andrew Benge/Redferns 2017 Fatboy Slim was one of the many performers at last month’s two-day Portola Festival at Pier 80. Bay Area residents as far as Alameda complained about excessive noise to event organizers.