Within the first two weeks of August San Francisco held its 15th annual music festival located in Golden Gate park. Outside lands is one of the hottest music festivals in California and drew over 75,000 guests this summer.
The festival brought out headliners like Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters, and Odesza. Other popular artists like Maggie Rogers, Megan Thee Stallion, and Lana Del Rey also performed at the festival. Overall outside lands contained more than 90 artists performing out the three day weekend.
The festival was a blast, I was able to attend both Saturday and Sunday. This was my second time attending the Outside Lands Music festival, I last went in 2019 before Covid 19. Despite the festival’s perfect lineup, there were a few common complaints circulating the outside lands guests. Here are the top 3 things I think Outside Lands should change for next year.
The Bathrooms
The two times I’ve attended Outside Lands I’ve always purchased General admission tickets. Guests that buy general admission have access to the concerts, the food/drink, and the porta potties. Porta Potties are nobody’s favorite, but this year the festival seriously struggled with their accessible bathrooms.
First off there weren’t enough Porta Potties throughout the festival. The festival takes up three major parks within the Golden Gate park. Meaning the festival’s stages, bathrooms, and food/drink vendors are all spread across over 1,500 acres.
Having bathrooms in each far corner of each park was just not enough for the amount of people attending the festival, and frankly they were just too far out of the way. There were also not enough porta potties for the amount of guests at the festival. This year all three days were sold out, yet it seemed like the festival didn’t accommodate that number.
The Food
As a guest who attended the festival for two days I ended up buying a total of 7 items at the festival. Two fresh blueberry lemonades, prawn lumpia, a chicken sandwich, ahi poke plate with rice, and a cookie dough ice cream dessert. The dessert and beverages were fantastic. However the food items were of very poor quality. My Chicken Sandwich bun was completely stale, the ahi poke plate was served with poor quality fish resulting in an upsetting texture. These items were each nearly $20.
As someone who attends a lot of concerts and music festivals I always expect the food to be pricey. However, if the food is pricey yet poor quality it can be quite disappointing. Now obviously I couldn’t try every food item but the ones I did were very disappointing. I believe the small businesses and companies that vendor the Outside Lands music festival are quality, delicious places that maybe didn’t have enough resources to serve fresh quality food at the festival.
Lana Del Rey’s set Location
Lana Del Rey performed on Saturday on the Twin Peaks stage around the same time Saturday’s headliners, the Foo Fighters performed on the Lands End stage, the biggest stage in the park. Lana’s set contained most of the physical fights that happened at the festival. The entire crowd was completely smushed to one another and the stage she was performing at just didn’t have enough capacity for the amount of people she drew in.
I was lucky enough to make it to both sets, Lana Del Rey’s and the Foo Fighters. The Lands End stage where headliners Foo Fighters performed was very vacant compared to Twin Peaks. Lands end had probably ¾ of the crowd that Twin peaks had. I don’t think it was a mistake to headline Foo Fighters because they’re fantastic, but I do think it was a mistake to not headline Lana, she deserved the biggest stage.
I can’t wait to see how the festival will improve next summer, and am always eager to see the next lineup. Despite these critiques I think Outside Lands is an amazing music festival that highlights the beauty of San Francisco and its citizens.