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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).
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