Michael Franti & Spearhead and Iration will headline the first BeachLife Nights on Oct. 18 and 19, a two-day music and food event in the Redondo Beach Harbor, organizers announced on Thursday, Sept. 5.
The BeachLife Festival has brought tens of thousands of music lovers to Redondo Beach since 2019. With the cancellation of BeachLife Ranch this year, organizers wanted to bring a new experience to the South Bay.
BeachLife Nights is more of a concert on a beach than a festival, the event’s manager, Sam Meyers, said. Organizers expect 3,000 to 4,000 to attend each day, compared to the more than 10,000 a day that BeachLife Festival drew its first five years.
“It’s a casual concert on the beach for $75 a day that you and your family can come when essentially no more shows are happening,” Meyers said. “This is like the season where people start to shut down and tours go off the road.”
Along with the two days of music, celebrity chef Curtis Stone will host a VIP barbecue behind the event’s main stage both days.
Michael Franti & Spearhead headlines the entertainment on Friday, Oct. 18, along with performance by The Rookies, The English Beat and Soja.
Anuhea, Donavon Frankenreiter and Fortunate Youth will open for Iration on Saturday, Oct. 19.
General admission and VIP tickets are available and are currently on sale. The event takes place from 4 to 10 p.m. each day.
VIP tickets, which cost $259 each day, will include a food and beverage tasting session from 4 to 6 p.m. with Stone, access to the Backstage VIP Lounge, a VIP front row viewing area and more.
General admission tickets for each day are $75.
“A festival or a weekend a big ask, and we’re trying to make this as easy as possible for people to come out and have great time,” Meyers said. “So we built this around a single day. You’re there for six hours, you get to go home, you’re in bed by 10, and then you can do whatever you want the following day.”
The event will be contained in the Seaside Lagoon area, Meyers said.
“Instead of building out in the parking lot, another thing that we’re kind of implementing into this plan is paid parking,” Meyers said. “During BeachLife Festival, it’s really hard to get parking. We always say, ‘Hey for bike,’ and still the same case. But if someone wants to drive and park, they literally pull in the parking lot and walk right into the venue.”
More than 33,000 people attended the fifth annual BeachLife Festival in May, organizers said. The event was headlined by Sting and Incubus the first two evenings. But the festivities were halted during the third evening when high winds forced the cancellation of headliner My Morning Jacket and ZZ Top’s performance was cut short.
The BeachLife Ranch Festival, which took place in 2022 and 2023 and featured country and Americans acts, was cancelled this year because of construction on the California Surf Club adjacent to the Seaside Lagoon. It is still to be determined if that event will be back in 2025, Meyers said.
BeachLife Festival early bird three-day tickets for 2025, which takes place May 2 to 4, range from $349 to $3,299 and are available at beachlifefestival.com. Single-day ticket sales are coming soon, according to the website.
For more information, visit beachlifenights.com.