In August 2008, the first Outside Lands music festival set up, plugged in, opened its gates. It was an experiment in sweet-talking the city government, cobbling together a big-name lineup, and wrangling tens of thousands of people into one fog-drenched corner of San Francisco. And Radiohead's headlining set — the first rock performance to happen in Golden Gate Park after 7 p.m. — would be the initial test.
Half the festival-goers were stuck in line waiting to get their tickets. Once in, it was a rush — people were tearing down fences to get to the stage as others clustered on the hills around the festival. As Radiohead went on, the Lands End stage was swarmed.
The sun went down over Golden Gate Park, the wind picked up, and the fog rolled in. And Radiohead put on a bombastic performance. The crowd of 60,000 was all in it together, a mass of people wrapped in mist, inhaling the heady scents of eucalyptus and pot. They were in one of the most beautiful places in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and they were watching history happen.
And then the sound went out. Twice.
The lights stayed on. The band played on. But the generators had overloaded and shut down.
After a few minutes off, the generators revived and Radiohead completed its 22-song set that, despite sound problems, was hailed as a triumph.
So goes the story of Outside Lands: major triumphs punctuated with the kinds of challenges that would discourage most and spell failure for many. But six years in, Outside Lands has become an undeniable success. It's outlasted its contemporaries — similar festivals that sprang up in 2007 or 2008 but ultimately failed. It is a destination, a festival that half its attendees travel to. And, arguably, it's gotten better every year.
Going into its sixth year, Outside Lands has sold out four times; this year in just 24 hours. The first five years have drawn 845,000 people to Golden Gate Park. It's successful in the strength and consistent diversity of its musical lineup. But music festivals are rarely the best place to see and hear music — the crowds are too big, the sound too diffused, and the focus too scattered.
So Outside Lands has grown to be about more than music. There's an emphasis on food, wine, and beer, celebrations of local art, and vocal environmental initiatives. The festival works because it showcases and mirrors San Francisco itself, a conscious decision made by its organizers that set Outside Lands apart from its competitors and ultimately fueled its success.
The San Francisco strategy has proven to be a win, but Outside Lands' triumph was far from guaranteed. Sound outages and crowd control were just the beginning. This is a festival that has had to contend with lineup shakeups, a collapsing economy, and, perhaps most intimidatingly, the fickle tastes and frighteningly high standards of San Franciscans, whether they attended the festival or not.
To understand how Outside Lands works, you have to look at the people putting it on. The festival is a team effort between Another Planet Entertainment, a Bay Area-based music promotion and booking company that sprang from the legacy of Bill Graham (festival founder Gregg Perloff was the president and CEO of Bill Graham Presents) in 2003, and Superfly Presents, mavens of large-scale music events and the creators of the Bonnaroo music festival. When they met in 2004, the idea of working on an event together quickly came up.
The setting of their first hang was inspirational, and prescient, in itself — Another Planet was putting on a free Dave Matthews Band show in Golden Gate Park in the summer of 2004, and got to talking about putting on a proper big festival in the location. Rick Farman, co-founder of Superfly, says that this team-up just made sense. Another Planet understood the Bay Area scene, while Superfly had found success in producing a large-scale music event in Bonnaroo.
They agreed that it was time for a festival like this to happen in San Francisco.
Bonnaroo's success was just one piece in the changing music industry of the early- to mid-2000s. In addition to the sprawling Tennessee spectacular, Coachella was starting to hit its stride, and Lollapalooza had made a comeback in '03 after a six-year hiatus.
"The shift from these amphitheater-centric events to large-scale, outdoor festivals really only started happening about 15 years ago, and caught steam in the last 10," Farman says. This is due in large part to the iPod-ification of the music world: Suddenly, people have access to enormous amounts of music that they could buy in one-off forms. "You're not listening to one type of artist anymore; you're listening to 50. That translates to the value proposition of a festival; you can see 50 bands at once, and get tastes of them all."
This format had seen longtime success in Europe, with historic fests like Glastonbury and Werchter. But the apparent success of U.S. festivals was inspiring promoters to try their hand at festival-creation nationwide. When Outside Lands debuted in 2008, four other festivals were kicking off, too: All Points West in New Jersey, Mile High Festival in Colorado, Pemberton Festival in British Columbia, and Rothbury Festival in Michigan.
Outside Lands was different from the beginning — it was held in a city rather than in a field or lot away from an urban environment. And the festival was about the city, rather than just in it — it would take cues from the environment of the park, and the tastes of the local population.
But this also meant that Another Planet was navigating a festival-planning landscape that included the Recreation and Park Department, the SFMTA, and various neighborhood associations. Considering San Francisco's notoriously difficult and bureaucratic city government, and an irritable population with a tendency to stage protests, this would not be an easy, or straightforward, course.
Following the 2008 festival, the city's Recreation and Park Commission put out the word to any and all interested promoters to submit their qualifications to hold a "Golden Gate Park Benefit Concert" in the summer of 2009. Another Planet, then, would have to apply to hold its own festival, despite raising $800,000 for the city in the festival's first year.
Not surprisingly, other parties were interested, including Live Nation, Anshutz Entertainment Group, and C3 Presents, all large-scale operations that put on events internationally.
It was all, of course, a money game.
Rich Hillis, the acting deputing director for the Recreation and Park Department in 2008, said as much: "The commission wants to make sure it gets the maximum amount of revenue and selects the most qualified promoter."
What's more, the permit would be for the next three years, essentially cornering this specific market for the immediate future.
"It was disheartening that we came to the city with this proposal and had to go through this process," says Allen Scott, Another Planet's executive vice president.
Another Planet won out, and was given its festival back. But by the time it was given the go-ahead to put on Outside Lands again, it was already into 2009. A lineup had to be put together, and fast — particularly compared to the years of planning that had gone into 2008's lineup.
The 2009 lineup was announced in April of that year. Its headliners had some crying '90s-flashback: Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, and the Beastie Boys. But Scott felt confident that the three would deliver, and was particularly pleased with locking down the Beasties, a surefire crowd favorite.
But an early morning phone call, just weeks before the festival, shook the festival outlook yet again. It was the Beastie Boys' agent, calling with the worst kind of news — Adam Yauch was sick, and the band was going to have to cancel. Scott's first thought was sadness and concern for Yauch, quickly followed by panic: They had just lost a headliner. What were they going to do?
They scrambled. Two weeks before the performance date, Another Planet announced that comic-rock duo Tenacious D would take the Beastie Boys' place.
It wasn't a bad solution. But that Sunday night felt like it closed with more of a whimper than a bang. After two days of unusual 90-degree weather in Golden Gate Park, the fog came in with a vengeance. People were flowing out of the park as Tenacious D fought to keep energy up for those who remained. For some, it was the low point of the festival's history.
Radiohead had led to a sellout day for the festival's first year. 2009 saw much lower attendance overall, 80,000 compared to 130,000. San Francisco's already-struggling economy was only getting worse. There would have to be some major changes in 2010 if Outside Lands hoped to survive.
There are only so many things that you can control when putting on an event of Outside Lands' scale. Radiohead's sound outage, sick headliners, and early friction with the city are the kinds of peculiar challenges that all promoters deal with to ensure a festival's survival.
When talking to Allen Scott and Bryan Duquette, Another Planet's director of business development, about these challenges, their approach quickly becomes clear: to take it in stride and stay focused on the long-term plan. The pair is sitting in Another Planet's Berkeley offices. Concert posters line the walls, highlighting shows at The Independent, the Greek Theater, the Fox, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium — APE's Bay Area venues. If you look closely, you'll spot bands making the progression from smaller venues like The Independent to the larger Bill Graham, often with Outside Lands in between.
Both Scott and Duquette love the music, but they're quick to speak to the details that make Outside Lands run, from the waste management to Scott's regular attendance at neighborhood association meetings. (Both originally hail from Virginia but are fully integrated into San Francisco; Scott, 40, moved to the Bay Area in 1997, and Duquette, 36, came in 2001.)
"Another Planet did not go into putting on Outside Lands lightly," notes Aidin Vaziri, longtime music critic at the San Francisco Chronicle. "They take it very seriously, and they're very good at what they do."
What's more, they're constantly looking for ways to improve every element of the festival.
A big part of this is dealing with the inevitable roadblocks, like a difficult city government, annoyed neighbors, and persistent fog. Not panicking is key. Another Planet set up a multilingual hotline to field neighborhood complaints — everything from a blocked driveway to stray trash. The merch booths sell blankets. And politics can be handled in a way that allows those in charge to put on a happy face, or at least stick to the party line.
Take the issue with the Recreation and Park Department in 2008. It clearly still irks the Another Planet team that it ran the risk of losing its own festival. But when discussing the festival's relationship with the city now, it's all love on both sides. Now, Rec and Park describes the festival as "a boon" to the city. Scott and Duquette are quick to echo a "we're all in this together" vibe.
But love doesn't come cheap. This warm and fuzzy positivity isn't just because everyone wants to get along: Another Planet gives a significant amount of money to Golden Gate Park. The first five years brought in $8.3 million for the park.
That may be the reason for all of this mutual appreciation, but Another Planet and the Recreation and Park Department do have something else in common — they share a real appreciation for the park itself. Another Planet endows a gardener, and sets the festival up incrementally so that as much of the park can remain open to the public in the days leading up to the festival for as long as possible. And, the sign that this is a true San Francisco event, when the fencing goes up, they make sure to feed the feral cats that are affected, and bring in an arborist to protect the trees as best they can.
Beyond that, they showcase the park in the way the festival is set up. One of the best changes made to the festival's layout was the opening of McLaren Pass, a wooded grove that sits between the two ends of the festival, in 2011. Festival foot traffic had initially been diverted around the area, which led to huge bottlenecks when getting from one stage to another. Opening the pass (named for the first steward of Golden Gate Park) alleviated this, and became a gorgeous new spot for cool things to happen, like Choco Lands, a carnivalesque grove featuring gourmet sweets, and a memorable surprise show from Jack White in 2012. White parked his Third Man Records van in the middle of the trees and played an up-close-and-personal short set to delighted fans.
In addition to having the kind of magical, enchanted forest vibe that most other festivals would have to spend bank to create, it's the kind of thing that locals can really appreciate — exploring new nooks and crannies of the park. And, it allowed the organizers to increase the festival capacity from 60,000 to 65,000.
Reaching a detente with the Recreation and Park Department helped ensure Outside Lands' longevity — Another Planet recently secured a permit to continue the festival until 2021. But, Another Planet and the parks department learned to play nice just in time for the festival to face one of the biggest challenges of its short history — the recession that began in 2008 and threatened the festival's survival in 2009. The financial crisis and the festival industry would come to a head in 2010.
It's one of the first things that critics point to when speaking to the ups and downs of Outside Lands: the year the festival was two days instead of three. It was an aberration in a festival that, from the beginning, aspired to be as all-involved as overnight events like Bonnaroo and Coachella.
But 2010 was a different kind of year for Outside Lands, and for San Francisco. The recession that had begun gathering steam in 2008 and 2009 hit hard, and unemployment rates skyrocketed. The music industry felt the crunch, too — bands were touring less and ticket sales went down. Outside Lands' festival contemporaries began to fold, finding themselves unable to stack their lineups and sell tickets. All Points West and Rothbury folded after two years of festivals in 2008 and 2009. Mile High Festival was cancelled after three years in 2010 due to the economy. Pemberton only survived 2008, its inaugural year.
Another Planet reassessed, reducing the festival to two days, lowering ticket prices, and doing the best it could with what felt like a slow year on the music circuit.
It didn't look good. Two days felt like a step back, and having the Kings of Leon as a headliner felt like a downgrade from major players like Radiohead and Pearl Jam.
Farman says that there just weren't enough appealing bands touring for them to properly fill three days. Making the Kings of Leon a headliner led some to question if there were enough bands to properly fill two. Even if it had, the economic climate made it less likely that people would be willing to pony up the cost for a three-day pass.
Overall attendance was down from the two previous years, but 2010 saw an uptick in daily attendance; 30,000 versus around 27,000 in 2009. What's more, Scott believes the final day of the 2010 festival harkened the bounce back that they would see in 2011. Mixed feelings about the Kings of Leon aside, the day had some triumphs, too, from on-the-brink bands like Phoenix and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, to music legends Al Green and Vieux Farka Toure. But most significantly, Another Planet reformatted the festival by cutting the number of stages and focusing on improving crowd flow.
Appearances aside, the gamble worked. Outside Lands made it through a slow year, and was able to focus on building the next year's lineup, which would include a home run of a headliner: Arcade Fire, blowing up like mad following the August 2010 release of its Grammy-winning opus, The Suburbs. In 2011, Outside Lands sold out for the first time.
You see Outside Lands' success in the recent spate of big-name, music legend headliners: Neil Young, Stevie Wonder, and last year's coup, Paul McCartney. It speaks to how far the festival has come in its short history. But much of the appeal of Outside Lands lies in what goes on beyond the music — namely, the focus on food, wine, beer, art, and recently, cocktails.
"Festivals aren't the best places to see music," Vaziri says. "So, you may as well use the music as an excuse to bring people together, and enhance it. I love that the food is great. I love that I can get Philz coffee! In a way, it has all the comforts of home."
Local food and wine have been a part of the Outside Lands makeup since the beginning, but organizers have given it more and more attention every year. In 2008, half of the food vendors were local. By the third year, 99 percent of them were. Wine Lands showcases the best of California's vineyards, and the introduction of Beer Lands in 2012 provided a welcome relief from the overpriced, flavorless fizz ubiquitous to festivals. This year, McLaren Pass will be home to Gastromagic, a cocktail area featuring local bar stars like Trick Dog and The Alembic, complete with food pairings, DJ sets, and a magician. It's almost laughable, until you realize that this is completely on point with today's S.F.
The approach has been so successful that other festivals are following suit, even aping the local focus. Lollapalooza introduced "Chow Town" in 2010, curated by "Chicago celebrity chef" Graham Elliot. Coachella amped up its food offerings just this year, featuring top Los Angeles restaurants and a $250 four-course dinner held by Outstanding in the Field, an operation known for putting on lavish dinners in nontraditional locales (beaches, caves).
The Outside Lands' food lineup continues to strike a chord with attendees, as evidenced by the crowds packing into Wine Lands, and waiting in half-hour-plus lines for a fancy food truck pizza. In addition to being a draw for out-of-towners — experience the best of San Francisco, all in one place! — these perks give San Franciscans something to get excited about, too. It's an opportunity to try restaurants you've heard about, but haven't made it to. Not to mention those restaurants that are hard to even score a table at outside of festival grounds, like Rich Table and AQ.
The idea, Duquette says, is to give everyone "something to be a part of." Beyond the food and drink, Outside Lands and Superfly have been working to tap into the tech community with Outside Hack, now in its second year, and kick off environmental initiatives. Those include a beach cleanup on the Saturday of the event, grease recycling, and efforts to donate leftover food from the vendors.
"We're celebrating the whole culture of San Francisco," Duquette says.
These combined efforts make the festival about more than just music, and, ideally, encourage attendees to come for more than just one day. Duquette notes that 90 percent of ticket holders this year have bought three-day passes, in part because Another Planet is now selling fewer single-day tickets than in the past. They want people to fully experience the festival, by trying the wine and the food and the beer; with a one-day pass, you're more likely to only focus on the music and feel the time crunch.
Of course, selling more three-day passes is a financial boon for the festival, too.
This all comes at a premium. Gone is the Woodstock-inspired image of dirty hippies sitting in mud, dropping acid and listening to a band. The $275 price tag for a pass is only the beginning; you don't get wood-fired Neapolitan pizza or grass-fed cheeseburgers for cheap. For those who find the benefits worth it, you find yourself with the opportunity to sample a fine California wine alongside some freshly shucked oysters ... all set to a live soundtrack. But that means that plenty of people are automatically priced out.
Looking at Outside Lands' first five years, the attention to San Francisco-centric detail quickly becomes evident. There's the food, wine, and beer, but there's also a diversity in the musical lineup that reflects the wide array of tastes in the Bay Area. Metallica's 2012 heavy metal headlining set was one example; this year, Kanye West will close out Friday night's lineup, the first hip-hop artist to do so (and a polarizing one, at that). There's EDM, indie hip hop, and the classic "heritage acts" like Willie Nelson.
"You know what blows me away?" Vaziri says. "Last year, there were just as many people at Pretty Lights as at Paul McCartney. There are just as many people watching this guy on a laptop as there are watching a Beatle play 'Hey Jude!'
Take that 2012 Metallica performance. Across the festival, Sigur Ros was playing a set that, in style, approach, and volume, could be considered a polar opposite. But both stages were packed and, in a pretty epic only-at-Outside-Lands moment, Sigur Ros frontman Jonsi and Lars Ulrich ended up hanging out over glasses of wine following the show.
Another Planet is in a unique position to understand its audience — when it's not running this festival, it's booking bands at venues of all sizes, from The Independent to The Greek Theater. It sees what sells out, what's catching on, and what's poised to get big. And it makes a point to showcase local talent, from big headliners to beginning-of-the-day bands like The Brothers Comatose. According to Duquette, 15-20 percent of each year's lineup hails from the Bay Area.
Andy Cabic of San Francisco-based band Vetiver has had a number of friends play the festival, and played it with his band in 2011.
"I can't imagine a better place to play," he says of the Golden Gate Park location. "And, for a festival of its scale, they treat you really well." He also appreciated that the crew from Another Planet, many of whom he'd met before, came out to see his set.
Thao Nguyen of Thao and the Get Down Stay Down played last year's festival, and had a similarly positive experience. She mentions that the festival has the best catering of all of the festivals she's played, and the easiest commute.
"Many a San Francisco stamp is imprinted on the festival," she says. "And the crowd was so kind, so warm and energetic."
The local love comes through in the basic setup of the festival, too — the stages are named after locations in the city, and the scrims surrounding the stages are done by hometown artists. This is in sharp contrast to other large-scale festivals; Lollapalooza has an incredibly prevalent corporate presence, as seen in the sponsor-named stages and branded scrims. The festival itself is named for the historical name of San Francisco's western neighborhoods, dating from the mid-1800s. Outside Lands won out over more generic potential names, including the Golden Gate Music & Arts Festival, On The Green, and The Big One.
Compare this with other big festivals. Bonnaroo and Coachella happen in a field and a desert, respectively; they are cities unto themselves. Lollapalooza happens in Chicago, but the festival isn't really about Chicago and the organizers don't live there.
Ultimately, San Francisco, the city, is one of the festival's greatest marketing assets. And everything about it, from the location to the amenities to the price tag, is reflective of the city today.
"San Francisco's a really hot market now, and it's one of the best places to be in the world, I think," Duquette says. "Obviously, there's going to be another bubble burst at some point ... but right now, the energy in San Francisco is thriving."
But Outside Lands isn't for everyone. It's expensive; it's tiring; it's cold. And it's a big festival, meaning big crowds, long lines, inconvenience. It could get even bigger — the festival's permit allows for 75,000 people per day, but Scott says they're not looking to expand, yet. Doing so would require an overhaul of the festival, "to keep it comfortable" for those attending.
The Another Planet team gets this, and is able to appeal to locals and out-of-towners alike, because they live here, too. And they understand that San Franciscans aren't above a little navel-gazing.
But the question remains: Can this momentum continue through an eventual economic downturn? Perhaps. Outside Lands was able to ride out 2009 and 2010, and the organizers seem confident that they can stay in tune with the city's taste. But for now, the city, and the festival, will take things as they come.
Everyone has his or her own idea of a memorable festival moment, and it's easy to get misty-eyed when talking about Paul McCartney's three-hour set of Beatles classics, or 2012's Stevie Wonder sing-along. But when asked for their own top Outside Lands memories, Scott, Duquette, Farman, and Vaziri all go back to 2008, and Wilco's Sunday afternoon performance.
The sun had come out, and the park finally felt warm. After a rough start, Friday's madness had given way to a scene that almost felt orderly; people were starting to know their way around the festival.
The crowd felt the relief too. And as the lilting opening notes of "California Stars" drifted out, Jeff Tweedy was met with a rising cheer. Everyone sang along:
"I'd like to rest my heavy head tonight on a bed of California stars..."
It wasn't necessarily the defining moment of Outside Lands. But it was a moment when things seemed to fall into place. It was a time to enjoy the possibility of what this festival had the chance to become, in a city that knew how to appreciate it.
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