It’s shaping up to be a month like no other for San Francisco’s legendary Golden Gate Park, which officials say will host nearly half a million music lovers over the course of seven ticketed concerts in August.
People will come from all over the Bay Area, as well as far beyond, to take in three wildly different music events in just a little over two weeks. The buzz around these shows has been palpable, casting a bright light on the local live music scene and perhaps helping to change the perception of a city that has seen no shortage of negative press in recent years.
“It feels like San Francisco is back,” says Allen Scott, president of concerts and festivals for Berkeley-based Another Planet Entertainment, which is promoting or co-promoting each of concerts in August at Golden Gate Park.
First up is a three-night stand, Aug. 1-3, with Dead & Company in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead, the legendary Bay Area psychedelic rock act that was known for playing shows at Golden Gate Park during its three-decade run that lasted from 1965 to 1995.
Deadheads will flock to these shows by Dead & Company — the incredibly popular Grateful Dead offshoot featuring longtime Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart as well as John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, Jeff Chimenti and Jay Lane — resulting in one of the summer season’s toughest tickets.
“We sold out immediately — 165,000 tickets over the three days,” Scott says.
The weekend following Dead & Company brings the annual Outside Lands Music Festival, featuring Tyler, The Creator, Doja Cat, Hozier and dozens of other hip acts performing across multiple stages Aug. 8-10.
The run concludes with country star Zach Bryan headlining a show that also features pop-rockers Kings of Leon on Aug. 15.
All told, these seven concerts are expected to pump more than $50 million into the local economy.
“It’s a huge moment for San Francisco,” says Phil Ginsburg, general manager of San Francisco Recreation and Parks. “We’ve all talked a lot about San Francisco’s economic recovery and revitalization since the pandemic. This is an important moment for us. It means huge economic impact. It means jobs. It means hotels being full. It means restaurants being full. And, most importantly, it means joy — joy for San Franciscans and joy for those who are coming to visit for the concerts.”
How did we get to the place where Golden Gate Park is an epicenter for big-name music events? Well, at least in regard to 21st-century happenings, we need to highlight the annual free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, which got its start in 2001 and has long drawn some of the largest concert crowds in the industry (the festival returns Oct. 3-5).
Yet, in terms of this August upswing, music fans should look no further than Outside Lands. The multi-day festival, which got its star in 2008 and has taken place every year since except during the pandemic year of 2020, has been such a huge commercial success — ranking as San Francisco’s answer to SoCal’s Coachella or Chicago’s Lollapalooza — that it opened the door for more live music events to be held in Golden Gate Park.
And, as the story goes, the process really began while Scott was giving then-Mayor London Breed a tour of the festival site a few years back.
“She’s like, ‘You guys should do a second weekend of Outside Lands,’” Scott recalls. “I told her that the appetite or demand for two weekends of Outside Lands is probably not there, but we would love to do a concert or concerts the following weekend — just leave the main stage up. That was a kind of a catalyst for her office and Rec & Park to see this happen.”
That led directly into last year’s show by Armenian American metal band System of a Down, which was the first (and, at this point, only) post-festival concert to take place on the Outside Lands site. Held on the weekend following the festival, it was a massive success, bringing in tens of thousands of visitors to the City by the Bay.
“Only 5% of the audience who came to System of a Down were from San Francisco,” Scott notes. “People were coming in from all over the Bay Area and all 50 states. That means (business for) hotels, cabs, restaurants — all those kinds of things.”
Still, it’s a mighty big change going from three days of Outside Lands and one System of a Down show to seven big shows in a 15-day period. But the chance to host this landmark Grateful Dead celebration — in a setting that arguably makes more sense than any other — was just too good for promoters to pass up.
“We had been working on a Dead & Company 60th anniversary Grateful Dead celebration for the last two years,” Scott says. “The stars aligned and we were able to do it. But they were only able to do it the week before Outside Lands, which coincides with (Jerry Garcia’s) birthday, as well as they really wanted three nights.”
Given that Zach Bryan was already booked to play on the Friday after Outside Lands, the only real possibility for a three-night stand at the park would be before the festival. And thus we have the story of why tens of thousands of Deadheads will be swarming to Golden Gate Park on the first weekend in August.
Of course, there is also a downside to such a huge influx of music lovers, especially for those who live near the park. It means more traffic, more noise, more parking hassles and other concert-related inconveniences.
“Most neighbors to the park are very understanding and patient. And we are grateful for that,” Ginsburg says. “Sometimes it can be inconvenient living in a dense city like San Francisco. But what we try to do, and I think we have worked very hard on and very collaboratively with Another Planet and other city agencies over the last 15 years, is to mitigate those inconveniences and those impacts.”
That includes working year-round on transit and public safety plans to minimize the impact of cars and traffic, as well as real-time sound monitoring and a hotline for noise complaints during the concerts. Also, Ginsburg points out that “these series of shows reuse the same infrastructure” which “minimizes the set-up and tear-down windows and keeps the park open to more people for more days.”
Despite all these steps, there will still be locals who won’t be happy with the issues that go along with so many visitors coming into the city. But those are the costs associated with hosting a Super Bowl, Final Four or some other massive event — like seven days of ticketed concerts at Golden Gate Park.
“Great cities do great things,” Ginsburg reasons. “And they are not without inconvenience for some. And we recognize that.”