It’s shaping as much as be a month like no different for San Francisco’s legendary Golden Gate Park, which officers say will host almost half one million music lovers over the course of seven ticketed live shows in August.
Folks will come from all around the Bay Space, in addition to far past, to soak up three wildly completely different music occasions in just a bit over two weeks. The thrill round these exhibits has been palpable, casting a shiny mild on the native reside music scene and maybe serving to to vary the notion of a metropolis that has seen no scarcity of unfavorable press lately.
“It feels like San Francisco is back,” says Allen Scott, president of live shows and festivals for Berkeley-based One other Planet Leisure, which is selling or co-promoting every of live shows in August at Golden Gate Park.
First up is a three-night stand, Aug. 1-3, with Useless & Firm in celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Grateful Useless, the legendary Bay Space psychedelic rock act that was identified for taking part in exhibits at Golden Gate Park throughout its three-decade run that lasted from 1965 to 1995.
Deadheads will flock to those exhibits by Useless & Firm — the extremely fashionable Grateful Useless offshoot that includes longtime Useless members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart in addition to John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, Jeff Chimenti and Jay Lane — leading to one of many summer season season’s hardest tickets.
“We sold out immediately — 165,000 tickets over the three days,” Scott says.
The weekend following Useless & Firm brings the annual Exterior Lands Music Pageant, that includes Tyler, The Creator, Doja Cat, Hozier and dozens of different hip acts performing throughout a number of levels Aug. 8-10.
The run concludes with nation star Zach Bryan headlining a present that additionally options pop-rockers Kings of Leon on Aug. 15.
All advised, these seven live shows are anticipated to pump greater than $50 million into the native financial system.
“It’s a huge moment for San Francisco,” says Phil Ginsburg, normal supervisor 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 the place Golden Gate Park is an epicenter for big-name music occasions? Effectively, not less than in regard to Twenty first-century happenings, we have to spotlight the annual free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, which bought its begin in 2001 and has lengthy drawn a few of the largest live performance crowds within the business (the pageant returns Oct. 3-5).
But, by way of this August upswing, music followers ought to look no additional than Exterior Lands. The multi-day pageant, which bought its star in 2008 and has taken place yearly since besides through the pandemic yr of 2020, has been such an enormous industrial success — rating as San Francisco’s reply to SoCal’s Coachella or Chicago’s Lollapalooza — that it opened the door for extra reside music occasions to be held in Golden Gate Park.
And, because the story goes, the method actually started whereas Scott was giving then-Mayor London Breed a tour of the pageant website a couple of years again.
“She’s like, ‘You guys should do a second weekend of Outside Lands,’” Scott remembers. “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 immediately into final yr’s present by Armenian American metallic band System of a Down, which was the primary (and, at this level, solely) post-festival live performance to happen on the Exterior Lands website. Held on the weekend following the pageant, it was an enormous success, bringing in tens of hundreds of tourists to the Metropolis 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.”
Nonetheless, it’s a mighty massive change going from three days of Exterior Lands and one System of a Down present to seven massive exhibits in a 15-day interval. However the likelihood to host this landmark Grateful Useless celebration — in a setting that arguably makes extra sense than some other — was simply too good for promoters to move 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.”
On condition that Zach Bryan was already booked to play on the Friday after Exterior Lands, the one actual chance for a three-night stand on the park can be earlier than the pageant. And thus we’ve got the story of why tens of hundreds of Deadheads might be swarming to Golden Gate Park on the primary weekend in August.
After all, there’s additionally a draw back to such an enormous inflow of music lovers, particularly for individuals who reside close to the park. It means extra visitors, extra noise, extra parking hassles and different 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 features working year-round on transit and public security plans to reduce the influence of automobiles and visitors, in addition to real-time sound monitoring and a hotline for noise complaints through the live shows. Additionally, Ginsburg factors 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.”
Regardless of all these steps, there’ll nonetheless be locals who gained’t be pleased with the problems that associate with so many guests coming into town. However these are the prices related to internet hosting a Tremendous Bowl, Remaining 4 or another large occasion — like seven days of ticketed live shows at Golden Gate Park.
“Great cities do great things,” Ginsburg causes. “And they are not without inconvenience for some. And we recognize that.”
