The Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is a

music festival A music festival is a community event with performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre (e.g., rock, blues, folk, jazz, classical music), nationality, locality of musicians, or h ...

held annually in San Francisco, California, at

Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development ...

. The festival is produced by Another Planet Entertainment,

Superfly Presents Superfly is a New York-based marketing and event company. Founded in New Orleans in 1996 as a Superfly Presents, they help produce Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival and previously owned and produced the Bonnaroo Music Festival, Bonnaroo Music ...

, and Starr Hill Presents. It is the largest independently owned music festival in the US. In 2019, it was one of the world's highest grossing festivals with revenues of almost $30 million.

History

The inaugural festival occurred August 22–24, 2008, with Radiohead as the first band to play after dark. It included more than 60 musical acts, as well as several art installations. The festival grounds included the Polo Fields (home to the Lands End Stage), Hellman's Hollow/Speedway Meadow (Twin Peaks and Panhandle stages), and Lindley Meadow (Sutro and Presidio stages). Bringing in 40,000 to 60,000 attendees a day, the inaugural festival was mostly a success; however, it was criticized for its lack of crowd control and disruption to the normally quiet Richmond and Sunset District neighborhoods. The second edition of the festival was held August 28–30, 2009, and streamed live on YouTube via the festival's YouTube account. It was not as successful as the inaugural year with a smaller turnout. The

Beastie Boys Beastie Boys were an American rap rock group from New York City, formed in 1978. The group was composed of Mike D, Michael "Mike D" Diamond (vocals, drums), Adam Yauch, Adam "MCA" Yauch (vocals, bass), and Ad-Rock, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz (voca ...

were scheduled to be the headliners, however, they dropped out of the lineup a month before the festival after Adam Yauch was diagnosed with cancer. Promoters scaled the event down to 40 total acts over two days for the third year. During the 2014 event, San Francisco police seized hundreds of counterfeit wristbands used by scalpers. This resulted in an adoption of radio frequency identification (RF) wristbands for 2015, along with an accusation that Fantastic Negrito was selling illegal VIP passes to the event. This festival went on hiatus in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions. The 2021 edition occurred on Halloween Weekend, October 29–31.

Grass Lands

The 2019 iteration became the first major music festival to offer legal cannabis for sale, after the San Francisco Office of Cannabis granted a temporary sales permit to Outside Lands. The area was known as "Grass Lands" and sold more than in cannabis products such as edibles, vaping cartridges and joints over the three-day event. 28 brands including

Cresco Labs Cresco Labs, Inc. is a publicly traded, vertically integrated cannabis and medical marijuana company based in Chicago, Illinois, with current retail operations in nine states where marijuana has been legalized for medical use. The company's stock ...

, PAX, Eaze, Kiva Confections,

Flow Kana Flow may refer to: Science and technology * Flow (fluid), Fluid flow, the motion of a gas or liquid * Flow (geomorphology), a type of mass wasting or slope movement in geomorphology * Flow (mathematics), a group action of the real numbers on a set ...

Openvape Openvape (stylized as O.penVAPE) is a manufacturer and distributer of personal vaporizer devices which make use of herbal extract An extract is a substance made by extracting a part of a raw material, often by using a solvent such as eth ...

and

Bloom Farms Bloom or blooming may refer to: Science and technology Biology * Bloom, one or more flowers on a flowering plant * Algal bloom, a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in an aquatic system * Jellyfish bloom, a collective ...

sold items such as cannabis-infused drinks, edibles, dabs, prerolls and disposable pods. San Francisco-based brands Green Door, Lady Chatterley Delivery, Flower to the People and Posh Green Collective were also available in Grass Lands. There were no requests for medical transport in the designated area, and all participants were required to throw away any alcoholic beverages before entering and show a 21+ identification.

Other attractions

Outside Lands also features attractions that focus around food, wine, and art. There is a wine lands portion of the festival that allows people to purchase tickets and sample wine from many different vendors. There are also areas that offer separate entertainment, including a sports lounge, an arcade/bar, and various food and art vendors. Despite its large environmental footprint, the festival has attempted to promote strategies of being eco-friendly. There are solar powered stages, a refillable water program, a waste diversion program, a recycling program, and bike valet parking program. There have also been workshops to educate concert attendees about organic food and farming.

Line-ups

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2021

2022

References

External links

Board of Supervisors Unanimously Approved Recreation and Park's Outside Lands ContractOfficial website
{{Rock festival Pop music festivals in the United States 2008 establishments in California Rock festivals in the United States Music festivals established in 2008 Music festivals in California Festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area