From right ‘vibe’ to quirky foods, festival has it all
Tickets sell fast as Golden Gate Park event becomes one of nation’s top music events
SAN FRANCISCO — As Outside Lands opened on Friday amid major music festival staples like hipster-round sunglasses, seas of picnic blankets and the occasional waft of marijuana, festivalgoers struggled to put their finger on exactly what sets the three-day extravaganza apart.
Is it the cozy San Francisco fog and cool weather in Golden Gate Park? The unusually wide age mix? The broad range of music genres that keeps everybody happy in a group of friends with divergent tastes?
Modesto resident Marissa Rivera, who has attended the festival every year since it launched in 2008, echoed other attendees when she said she finds San Francisco’s event more appealing than the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, its larger Southern California rival.
“It’s more grass-roots,” she said of Outside Lands. “It’s not as superficial. Not a lot of big stars come. Does that make sense?”
This year’s lineup had festivalgoers excited over names like Radiohead, Lionel Richie and LCD Soundsystem. But next to Coachella, which is packed with mega-famous artists from Kesha to Rihanna to Kanye West, Outside Lands’ lineup is slightly more modest.
But that’s not to say that the festival isn’t a massive production.
According to Forbes, it was the fourth most-attended U.S. music festival last year, when it also ranked behind Coachella as the second-highest grossing event of its kind in the country, taking in $24.3 million from ticket sales alone. This year’s tickets sold out in 45 minutes. The starting price: $375 for three days.
While music is at the heart of Outside Lands, its fans say that’s just one part of what the festival offers and what makes expensive passes so coveted.
“I come for the vibe,” said Vania Navarro, who lives in Oakland. “It’s a nice combination of all the good things in life.”
Navarro was in line on Friday for a bacon grilledcheese sandwich at a savory stand dubbed Bacon Lands. The festival has over 80 local food vendors and entire areas devoted to Bacon Lands’ larger counterparts, such as Choco Lands, Wine Lands and Beer Lands.
Festivalgoers say the sophisticated eating options and side attractions like comedy shows help draw an older crowd than festivals like Coachella.
“From families all the way to older folks,” said Steve Reilly, 31. “I enjoy that. It’s much more family-oriented, shockingly.”
Melody Stein, who brought the food-truck version of her San Francisco restaurant Mozzeria to Outside Lands for the first time this year, said the emphasis on food is all about the location.
While Coachella is a remote getaway in Indio near Palm Springs, Outside Lands draws on a world-class food scene. The festival’s offerings are so gourmet that the occasional plain old pretzel vendor can seem out of place: Vendors tout their green, locally sourced and vegan bona fides while serving up quirky dishes like ice cream tacos. On Friday evening, a queue of over 40 people waited to taste smoked jackfruit sandwiches.
Festivalgoers say part of Outside Lands’ fun lies in poking fun at the whole thing.
The food-themed Gastro Magic stage on Friday featured a profanity-laden skewer of a local cook under the headline “Bay Area Hipster Chef Roast.” And some say that music aside, they come primarily to people-watch and take in the colorful mix of flower crowns, flamboyant colors, faux jewel body decals and chilly weather shortshorts.
“This is a straight ratrace of hipsters,” said Juli Loveridge, 29, who lives in Egypt but is staying in the Bay Area for the summer. “It’s all about the fashion, and everybody’s trying to one-up each other. Do they wear this stuff every day?”
San Franciscans say that, yes, the festival’s annual foot traffic and drunken revelers can grate on natives’ nerves.
Marijuana and Ecstasy aren’t hard to find, but the No. 1 drug at Outside Lands is alcohol, said Jeff Scott, 28, who’s visiting from Nevada. New arrivals on Friday evening said their buses from San Francisco’s Civic Center were packed with drunk people.
But despite the disturbances, the festival’s a big moneymaker for everything from nearby cafes to local schools that make thousands renting out their parking spaces. And attendees says that city residents embrace the festival as a must-see for locals.
Chloe Garabato, 22, of San Francisco, remembered sitting at home in previous years hearing the festival’s blasting music. Her only thought was, “I wanna go!”
Garabato scored an almost-free ticket to Outside Lands as a “trash talker” hired to guide visitors’ waste-sorting. She arranged to work five hours a day and spend the rest of the weekend wandering around the festival. Last year, she stayed in Golden Gate Park until past 3 a.m. as part of an after-concert cleanup crew.
Fellow San Francisco resident Mark Bilos said he felt almost obligated to go to the festival.
“This is where everyone in the city is today,” he said Friday.
Or at least it felt that way, he said, adding that work would have been very lonely that day if he’d shown up.
Justin Di Palo, visiting Outside Lands solo from Los Angeles, said that while music festivals are known for chaotic crowds, he savors the quieter moments at Outside Lands. On Friday evening, he took a break from the blasting noise to sit down on a log in the trees and strike up a conversation with another music-lover.
“Chilling, walking around a beautiful park — it’s more laid back than Coachella,” he said. “This wouldn’t happen there.”