It’s year five for Outside Lands and it’s boasting its biggest lineup of artists so far…and its biggest crowd. All three days of the festival are officially SOLD OUT.
If you live near the park and will be welcoming people to the neighborhood each day, here are some tips to help you negotiate the crowds and traffic – and give the best advice to the 65,000 concertgoers that will be visiting each day this weekend.
WHEN & WHERE
Outside Lands runs from Friday at 11am until Sunday night at 9:40pm. Venues in Golden Gate Park include the Polo Fields (main stage), Hellman Hollow, Marx Meadow and Lindley Meadows. On all three days, gates open at 11am, music begins at 12noon, and music ends at 10pm (9:40pm on Sunday).
7×7 has some stats on the festival: 195,000 attendees over 3 days, 9,000 bikes, 2,500 workers, 600 port-a-potties, 78 tons of compost and recycled materials, and 38 tour buses for the bands. Oh and 200 food items which relate to the port-a-potties and 78 tons of stuff 😉
^ CLICK TO ENLARGE
WHO’S PERFORMING & HOW YOU CAN LISTEN IN
Before we get into the logistics, let’s take a moment to revel in the great headliners that will be taking the stage in our neighborhood park this weekend. The biggies include Metallica, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Foo Fighters, Jack White, Beck, Skrillex, Norah Jones and many others. Check out the full lineup here, where you can conveniently sort by day, artist or stage.
If you’re attending the festival, be sure to get the free mobile app for iPhone or Android. You can create your custom festival schedule (and get alerts), view a festival map, get special Instagram filters to apply to your festival photos and more.
If you’re not able to attend, TuneIn radio is running a free, live radio station from the festival on all three days. The big headliners won’t be included, but you can listen to the live sets of some “known” artists like Franz Ferdinand, The Walkmen, Fitz and the Tantrums, plus many more smaller acts. Tune in here or on the TuneIn mobile app, and check the TuneIn blog for who they will be broadcasting and when.
TRAFFIC CLOSURES
During the festival, the venues and roads around them are closed to the general public and all car traffic thanks to cyclone fencing (most of them are already closed off). If you want to get through or around the park this weekend, plan on using 19th Avenue, Stanyan, or Great Highway.
Here’s a map of the entrances to the park that will be closed to car traffic during the festival:
Festival venues in the park will re-open next week. The Polo Fields will re-open on Thursday, August 16 at 6pm. Lindley Meadow will re-open partially on 8/13 at 8pm, and completely by 8/14 at 8pm. Hellman Hollow will re-open at 8am on Wednesday, August 15.
PARKING & TRANSPORTATION
3 days of a sold out music festival means a lot more people will be making their way into the Richmond District this weekend. MUNI is increasing their service to meet the demand (see schedule), and the festival runs a shuttle that transports concertgoers from Bill Graham Civic Auditorium downtown out to the park and back (11am – 12midnight each day, limited coverage from 5pm – 8pm. 3-Day Shuttle Pass – $29.50).
Again this year, schools in the neighborhood will open up their lots and raise money by charging for parking. For $25, you can park your car all day at Lafayette at 36th & Anza, Argonne at 17th & Cabrillo, and Presidio Middle School at 30th & Geary; for $30 you can park at George Washington High School (30th & Anza). Also getting in the mix this year is Cabrillo Playground at 39th between Cabrillo & Fulton. Lots open typically 1 hour before the festival opens and close 1 hour after the music ends. Jefferson Elementary in the Sunset (Irving & 18th Avenue) will also be open. Proceeds benefit school programs.
The festival also provides free, secure parking for bicycles at the intersection of Transverse and Overlook Drive.
Residents can also capitalize on their available parking spots. If you have a space or driveway you want to rent out to concertgoers, check out Park Circa or Park Please. You list it, users find it, park there, and you get paid.
Pedicabs are also an option this year. Cabrio Taxi will have 18 pedicabs working the park between Stanyan and the festival. 10 will give free rides between 12noon and 3pm, and 7pm – 11pm. West of the venue they will have 8 pedicabs working under the “tip system”. Call or text (415) 430-8853 for pickups.
The festival is also running 10 free pedicabs, transporting festival-goers from the entrance of the park to the festival and back for FREE. Look for the them along JFK Dr. at the Stanyan Park Entrance, the 8th Ave Entrance and under the Crossover Bridge.
COMPLAINTS? QUESTIONS? BLOCKED DRIVEWAY?
The festival has set up a community hotline again this year to take calls from neighbors – 415-422-0964. It is open from 10am until 11pm on all three days.
In addition to hotline staff, the city will add 2 dedicated tow trucks and 1 Parking Control Officer on each side of the Park to quickly respond to any blocked driveways or any other parking issues related to the Festival. You can also call SFMTA Parking Enforcement at 553-1200 (press 1 for English, then press 5 for blocked driveway).
SFMTA will increase the number of Parking Control Officers assigned to this event to direct traffic and enforce parking regulations from 15 to 25, and three solo motorcycle officers will be assigned to the streets outside Golden Gate Park to assist in traffic control and enforcement.
And if you want to make it super clear on your garage door that cars blocking your driveway will be towed, stop by McClaren Lodge on Stanyan and Fell to pick up a free “NO FESTIVAL PARKING” sign from Rec & Park.
WHAT YOU CAN BRING INTO THE FESTIVAL & LOCKERS
If you are planning to attend, be sure to peruse the list of what you can and can’t take into the festival. Blankets, soft coolers, backpacks, sealed water bottles (max of 2), binoculars and point-and-shoot cameras are all ok. Pets, glass, chairs, umbrellas, and alcohol are not ok.
For the first time this year, the festival will offer lockers so you can secure some of your goods if they’re weighing you down as you move from stage to stage. You can rent medium lockers for all three festival days for only $5, or large lockers for just $10.
If you’re attending Outside Lands, have a righteous time! And if you’re not, just remember it only lasts 3 days! 🙂
Sarah B.
Oooh goodie! An Outside Lands thread!
Lemme be the first to say…
Three cheers for Outside Lands! Can’t wait for the weekend!
Outside lands is great- brings in millions of $$ for the park, local schools and businesses, and hotels, and boasts a great lineup. It is everything Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is not. HSB brings in the wastoids to block Fulton and Lincoln with 30 year old Winnies from god knows where, with zero benefit to local business, since you can cart in liquor literally by the cart. They leave booze and trash everywhere, and all for unpopular, nobody bands. It’s gotta go.
Hey Nate obviously there’s no accounting for taste, I couldn’t agree less with you. Hardly Strictly has the better music and it is better for the community because it is free and done much better than Outside Lands. If an event is going to take over the park, it should be free to attend like Hardly Strictly.
I think they are both great.
Thanks for pointing out the parking at local schools, Sara. I believe the Friends of Cabrillo Playground are also having parking at the (recently closed for renovation) playground on 39th between Cabrillo & Fulton, too.
Yay for Outside Lands and HSB!
This is a great guide!
I’m jealous I didn’t get tickets… I went a couple years ago and it was really fun.
Im braving the crowds for the first time this year. Dont know if I’m excited or terrified! I usually love the anonymity and “locals” vibe of our neighborhood….but thought I wouldnt ditch out this time! Thanks for all the info!
Haveca great time Stefanie!
Sarah B.
I’m going Saturday. Looking forward to it! And I only live a few blocks from GGP.
I can understand how people who might live right on the park might find it a bit tough. But it’s one of the tradeoffs of sharing a big city with a lot of other people, I guess.
Have fun kayvaan! Glad some neighborhood peeps are going too 🙂
Sarah B.
Totally looking forward to this (going all 3 days)!! Definitely going to take many pix and enjoy the weekend!
Power To The Peaceful canceled as corporate-paid-ticketed events in GGP squeeze out the free stuff http://www.powertothepeaceful.org/index.php/news/item/announcement-cancellation?category_id=3
I live on Fulton and am so excited to share our neighborhood with all of our visitors this coming weekend (and I’m also hoping to hear some strains of Stevie Wonder and Neil Young when they play!). Glad to hear the event is sold out and will be bringing in great revenue for our parks system and for our local schools.
apples and oranges, but hardly strictly does a way better job with the neighbors [me]. my park is fenced off every which way for a week before AND AFTER. they close the middle road for two weeks to bikers [me] and pedestrians for no acceptable reason. i understand closures during and maybe a day before, but i will work to eliminate this event. [HS has the middle road closed for a total of four days]
the park is fenced off like a low security penitentiary, and the park gets trashed. the meadows take months to recover, trails, bike paths and roads are left covered with heavy truck mud for weeks and the garbage is never fully removed by OSL staff. and the traffic situation is outrageous. as though everybody is invited to drive instead of public transport. the snarl throughout the three day weekend on 19th, presidio, stanyan, great highway and beyond is horribly mismanaged.
just saying. hardly strictly handles this stuff with much more class and finesse. hope this is your last year OSL.
13. such an obvious plant from the OSL staff, along with other comments posted here. more wolves than sheep in this thread:
“Amy” said:
“I live on Fulton and am so excited to share our neighborhood with all of our visitors this coming weekend (and I’m also hoping to hear some strains of Stevie Wonder and Neil Young when they play!). Glad to hear the event is sold out and will be bringing in great revenue for our parks system and for our local schools.”
what a farce.
Though the street parking situation makes me feel “marooned” for three days (if I move my car I’ll likely lose my parking spot) I have to say that in the grand scheme of things these events cause little enduring wear and tear on GGP. GGP and Mother Nature are pretty tough. Most of any “damage” is to manmade “improvements” to Nature. As long as the trash gets picked up promptly I’m okay with it all. The parks are for all people. We can do without any “Don’t walk on the grass” attitutdes.
Just like last year, derek, there appear to be some people here who just simply can’t believe that people live near the park and enjoy this event immensely. They just can’t believe it. I dunno why. .
But I absolutely love the event, and am very happy its int he park, and hope it stays for a long while.
Hey “Amy” welcome back! I remember you from last year’s OSL promotional comments on this site.
If you lived on Fulton, at least where I do, you would not be so manic about cleaning up pee, poo, vomit, and telling people to stop selling pizza on your front porch.
@Indoor Camping and @derek – I really do live on Fulton, and before that lived at 26th and Anza. It makes me sad that so many people in the neighborhood do nothing but complain about a 3-day event (for this and HSB, most of the comments on this blog are negative – really, anything in Golden Gate Park gets people so up in arms), so I just like to voice a positive opinion so that there’s another side to the story. I actually sit out in a lawn chair in the driveway to try and get a free listen when the wind’s blowing the right way.
It seems to me like Bay to Breakers (which takes place over how many hours? 6?) has way more bodily functions emitted on its route than 3 days of these fests, but no one out here cares about that because it doesn’t affect the Richmond as much of the rest of the city.
@derek and @indoor camping – Please avoid intimidating other users with your comments. No one side owns this thread, and everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if it does not agree with yours. Thank you.
Sarah B.
There are more, unlisted, street closures than what you have listed and what Outside Land’s website announces. Middle Drive has been closed since roughly 8/1/2012 from roughly Metson Lake to MLK and it will likely be closed for a similar number of days afterwards to remove whatever they put in place. There is no notice that the road is closed before getting to that point and if one is unfortunate enough to be heading west, it means turning around and going from roughly 30th to 20th to go back to Transverse Drive and then use MLK or JFK to go west. When heading east, the street is blocked at MLK junction point so one can still use MLK, or go back to Chain of Lakes to go to JFK. Middle Drive is mostly used by bicyclists to avoid cars on JFK and MLK.
My biggest problem with this overlarged event is how the whole western section of the park is closed to traffic. The bare minimum this concert could do for the neighbors is open up the streets in the park for traffic use as they are not used whatsoever in the event and creats a huge traffic pbblem everywhere. They also need to cut back on the amout of space they use as it is closed for a month for setup, concert and tear down. ***Next year open the roads and pick either the medow or polo fields!***
*** And I’ll ignore the urine, trash and vomit!***
Neil Young is sounding pretty awesome from 20th ave and Anza right now.
I promised myself I wouldn’t comment this year, but mel, I gotta agree with you.
Was surprised how long his set was. That guy just keeps going, and his voice never changes.
be ause of this nightmare we sre packing up.our kids and gping to my.in lwws in the east bay for tje weeke.d. i havr a 9 month d and my dau is 3. thry cannot sleep or nap and the noise drives them crazy and cranky our cat jides under the bed and wont come out at all. the walls and floorboards are vibrating eitj noise. i never got to vote on thiis and for 3 yrs now i am a refugee! gg psrk is public property. how can this hugecsection it be fenced off no public access for 9 days in the summer so no one can use it? citozens who pay the yaxrs to run the park are have no rights? ,Promoters have bought off everyone?
be ause of this nightmare we sre packing up.our kids and gping to my.in lwws in the east bay for tje weeke.d. i havr a 9 month d and my dau is 3. thry cannot sleep or nap and the noise drives them crazy and cranky our cat jides under the bed and wont come out at all. the walls and floorboards are vibrating eitj noise. i never got to vote on thiis and for 3 yrs now i am a refugee! gg psrk is public property. how can this hugecsection it be fenced off no public access for 9 days in the summer so no one can use it? citozens who pay the yaxrs to run the park are have no rights? ,Promoters have bought off everyone?
Outside Lands Mega Concert = presumably money for a cash starved City
The Moment It Ends For Outer Richmond Residents? PRICELESS
Hope everyone’s had a good weekend. Don’t forget, if you spent all weekend not moving your car, to move your car for street cleaning on Monday and Tuesday!
3pm on Sunday, I’m a mile and a half away, and my windows are buzzing — definitely worse than most previous years. The 2nd year was pretty low-impact after the fuss raised after the first one; guess it’s time to start fussing again.
I live 4 houses in from Fulton and I actually enjoy the concert every year. Yes, it is a hassle to go anywhere but I plan ahead and enjoy the hustle in the neighborhood. I can also laugh a bit as there is a very small curb between my driveway and a neighbors that is just barely fits a Smart car. All day for 3 days people will flip around and try to fit their SUVs and large cars in this tiny spot. They pull up a smudge, get out look get back in and pull back a bit get out look front, then back then stand there wondering. Then they look up at my house and then get back in the car and drive away only to have someone else pull in and do the same thing.
For most events including marathons, BlueGrass etc, people park there and generally do it right in the middle which totally blocks my neighbors and my driveway. No notes, nothing. They seem to just not care which is surprising as I would expect that from OL more then these others based on type of people going.
Wow, tonight’s fog was an excellent conduit to allow Stevie Wonder’s delicious timbre to waft over 20th Ave. “Overjoyed” never sounded better.
And then crickets…I mean foghorns.
The wanna be hipsters have faded into the fog. Raccoon party behind the main stage!
I’m not a fan of this event, especially when a public park is privatized for the benefit of a lots of young people who can afford to pay an extravagant price for three days of music. Are the promoters trying to emulate the ’60’s? If so, it’s a feeble attempt corrupt with greed and self-interest. As a resident of the Richmond District, I don’t appreciate the loitering in front of my home, the limos and cabs speeding up the block looking to pick up a fare, muni diverted up my block, and the horrible thrashing the park has taken. Has anybody walked over to Lindley Meadow and the polo fields and taken a look at the horror left behind. There’s not one patch of green left in the polo field. The portable toilets are open and smell of urine lingers. Trash was strewn everywhere. Sombody even used my neighbor’s front garden to urinate. Is it worth the beauty of the park? Who’s paying to put it all together. And really how much money is the City making after all the expense of putting the park back together. And who will pay for the damage to various homes in the neighborhood? Will Sunset Scavenger make a voluntary extra pick up for all the garbage that was placed in my trash can as people walked to the park? San Francisco is not very good at concentrating on Golden Gate Park to begin with. Who is monitoring the efforts to return the polo field anfd meadows to green. Why privatize the park. I couldn’t even walk down JFK drive. Eric Mar, you should be ashamed of yourself. Take a walk around the polo field and Lindley meadow today and you tell me after subtracting the cost, how much profit was really made? You allowed the whole ecosystem of the park to be disrupted.
SF is a cash strapped city and the park is an obvious money-making venue, those are the facts. I complained about the noise and congestion from the event for 2 of the last 4 years, only to be lost in a sea of greed. For those summer/fall festival weekends, the residents of the Sunset and Richmond Districts lose the use of their neighborhoods to the promoters of OSL, HSBG, P2DP festivals. It wouldn’t be bad for the community if the event is confined strictly to the park, but it invariably spills over into the surrounding neighborhoods with human and vehicular traffic as well as the acoustics of the odd topography. This year, APE wins, I couldn’t hear the concert at all from my chair in Bryant Park, nor while at the Guggenheim or MOMA. The concert dates are published so far in advance, so it should not come as a nasty surprise to those that are not physically home-bound, and allow enough lead time for those to object to these events to schedule a vacation around them or least get away from the area for the weekend.
For those who think the Richmond District homeowners can just getaway, some of us can’t. Those who’ve just had surgery or are recuperating from an illness just can’t getaway. We’re imprisoned in the neighborhood. This year concertgoers just used our bushes as a urinal.
Disabled or not, why should anyone have to move away from our homes for three days to deal with this? It’s become bloated and overgrown… three days is too much… by the end of the third day I felt like I was being tortured by this constant booming in the background. There are lots of ways money can be made in the park. There have been concerts in the park for years, but they stay confined to their area… OL and HSB reach miles out of the park and disrupt a lot of people’s lives in San Francisco. As stated above, greed is definitely what it’s all about. The 10 blocks of parking barricaded off from Fulton Street pretty well prove that APE couldn’t care less about parking in the neighborhood. It was all about their shuttle buses, and to hell with the neighbors or their lives.
Harriet, it is unfortunate that you are unable to get away. That is not a reason for this event, which by all accounts was a massive success, to not take place in the park.
Three days is not too much. People who want peace and quiet can have peace and quiet 362 days of the year; a three day event which brings in millions of dollars for the city and makes a lot of people very happy. Remember…you aren’t the only neighbor who lives near the park.
And as many folks up above have pointed out, they live near the park and enjoyed the event and didn’t particularly mind the minor inconveniences.
Or maybe folks here think they are fake posters?
Anyways, here’s to hoping next year will be just as good as this year was.
Obviously the festival is here to stay as it makes a ton of money for APE and the city in the rental and use fees. It’s pretty clear that the contract, which lapses after the 2012 event, will either be renewed or renegotiated. As J said, three days is not too much, and if the bridge and tunnel crowd are willing to brave the freezing cold for three days straight, they might someday be residents of the Richmond/Sunset district because they found the neighborhood pleasant, congenial and inviting at events like OSL and pay the asking price on your house/condo, etc. We are not the snobs of Pac Heights/Nob Hill but everyday people and that means inclusive of EVERYONE, regardless of what/whom they like.
I am sorry you weren’t able to get away, Harriette, and that some things like surgery and illness cannot be preplanned, in those cases it is just unfortunate that you get trapped in the mayhem. Complaining about a behemoth event that brings in cash to city coffers is like trying to fight off an invading army with a butter knife. In San Francisco, there is only one way stop an event. Recall the events of the last sanctioned Halloween in the Castro. For the greater good, I am willing to cede my neighborhood for this kind of event for a couple of weekends in the summer and fall, as long as the thugs and gangbangers stay away.
Re: Dman said:
“Disabled or not, why should anyone have to move away from our homes for three days to deal with this?”
Otherwise you get three days of shaking walls or a bass line that infiltrates your house for 15 hours straight on each of the three days, if you want to endure it year and year and do nothing about it, it’s your right to complain to the deaf ears at the DPR monthly meetings. Able bodied people take vacations at least once a year, and mid-August is generally ideal for Sunset/Richmond residents to get away from the endless fog and the pervasive sounds of OSL. After four years, it’s either have high blood pressure on the same weekend in August or save one’s sanity. The smart ones figured it out last year and lit out of town. NIMBYism only works if the ENTIRE neighborhood is up in arms over it, but there are far fewer complaints this year compared to last. The writing is on the wall.
To Temp NewYawker: There are things being done, just behind the scenes when we learned early on in the game that the whole thing was rigged by Rec and Park and realized that playing along didn’t work.
Also: if you’re the person I think you are, you certainly aren’t who you made yourself out to be. On one hand your postings are talking about the extreme discomfort of the concerts, and on the other how you’ve chosen to give in to them by “fleeing.”.
Secondly, not all of us have the luxury or taking vacations when we want. And strangely enough, people seem to continually leave out there are TWO three-day concerts in the area, not one, separated two months apart. Unless you’re retired (or taking off to New York every couple of months or so when the mood hits you), a lot of working people in the area can’t take off whenever they want to.
I unsubscribed from these comments last night, but somehow it didn’t work… this blog is an example of a situation that doesn’t get any further than people expressing fervered opinions and baiting each other to the point of going in circles year after year.
As I said, there are many of us that have learned this year that San Francisco doesn’t believe in following blatantly-broken laws and that it has a very flawed and corrupt system (especially in the Richmond district). If you want to give in to that, then that’s certainly your decision.
And Sarah B., if you can help me unsubscribe from these postings, I’d appreciate it. I went into settings and nothing was checked as far as any topics, but I’m still receiving them.
Thanks.
@Dman – You’ve been unsubscribed. Turns out the plugin we were using to manage comment subscriptions was obsolete. So we updated and problem solved. Thanks for your patience! (Of course since you’re unsubscribed you’ll probably never see this! 🙂
Sarah B.
Now that the festival is over, I can safely say that the festival was the disaster that my neighbors and I expected. Here’s our regularly short list of things that happens every year during Outside Lands:
1. Our front yard landscaping gets stomped on ruining about $300 of plants and broken pottery.
2. Loud and obviously drunk festival goers continue to hoot and holler through the night. Since I worked on Fri, Sat and Sun.. I was completely screwed.
3. You guessed it.. blocked driveway (give me a Mel Gibson.. “HOORAY”)
4. Miserable wretched traffic all weekend.
5. I went over to Royal Grounds on Geary in hopes to get away from the noise. Of course a drunken festival goer walks in (well under 18, and smelled/dressed like someone who spent the day at Outside Lands) comes in demanding to use my cellphone to call her parents for a ride. Since I don’t let drunk strangers use my phone, she went to each patron in the cafe screaming for their phones.
6. My source of stress relief is jogging though GGP. Of course, ruined.
7. My other source of enjoying the neighborhood is going to the beach. Of course.. fucked.
8. Neighbors who rely on street parking…. screwed!
Before you get your panties in a bind, I’m the first to say that concerts are great. But why the fuck would you cram 85,000 in a place that doesn’t even have the transportation to support it? There are other places that can manage this number of people. Doesn’t the city have two stadiums that we fucking pay for to handle this kind of capacity?
If you think that Outside Lands is great… why don’t you simulate living here. Here’s the checklist of things you need to do:
1. Commit yourself to street parking during the work week. But you’re only allowed to park your car at least 2 miles from your home.
2. Have your neighbor get a pot and pan and have him bash them together at 2am for three days. Once you get used to the pots and pans.. have your neighbor play Nickleback for another 30 minutes.
3. Spend a few hours each week on landscaping your front yard. Then find Gozilla and get him to stomp over everything you worked on. Then find some high school kids to tear up random shit and throw it all over your front yard.
4. Make a list of every where you like to visit in your city. Now, you’re not allowed to visit them for the weekend.
5. Go to the nicest park in the city. Urinate, trash and uproot every nice thing you find in there.
6. After all this, find the most smug asshole at your workplace. When you complain, have the smug coworker smile and say, “But this is a great festival. I love the music and the money it brings to the city.”
Well said. No. 46
That’s a real shame that the housing costs and other costs of living are so exorbitant in the Richmond District that some residents cannot afford time off in the middle of August to get away from OSL. Maybe Dman and the others should move to Fremont or Milpitas to take advantage of the quiet and cheaper accommodation.
Seriously, OSL is a divisive issue, and everyone generally agrees that the event rakes in so much money that the inconvenience of a few ‘grumpy’ neighbors can safely be ignored. One of these years, somebody brilliant will bring in guns and knives and ferment a riot where there might be fatalities. Until then, expect this invasion of the park every August until the foreseeable future.