For 16 years, Outside Lands (August 9-11) has filled Golden Gate Park with colorfully attired music lovers, keen to experience huge national and international acts (with some coming up on the radar), and show off the city as it is now. But the music festival has also evolved over the past few installments to address a lack of local representation and to become truly diverse. Now, the SOMA dance music area includes local DJs, the Dolores’ stage brings local drag queens and queer acts to the fore, and food and cannabis offerings emphasize the Bay Area’s leadership in these delectables.
This year’s Outside Lands has also come with a major challenge: Headliner Tyler, the Creator dropped out unexpectedly last month, leaving organizers scrambling for a replacement—a last minute situation no one wants to be in, let alone the organizers of one of the biggest music festivals in the country.
And the three-day extravaganza now comes with a little sibling: a sold-out concert the very next Saturday, August 17, in the same Golden Gate Park location featuring System of a Down and Deftones, where “90% of the audience is coming from outside of San Francisco,” according to Another Planet Entertainment (APE) President of Concerts and Festivals Allen Scott, whose been with the Berkeley-based company since its founding in 2003.
We spoke with Scott about what it takes to produce such a huge and ever-changing festival, how he’s dealing with the last-minute challenges and details, and APE’s recent foray into massive events in SF’s city center, like the recent Skrillex and Fred Again show in Civic Center in June and the free Dirtybird party at Embarcadero last weekend.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
48 HILLS With the festival a few weeks away, what kind of things are you most focusing on down the stretch?
ALLEN SCOTT Mainly putting the finishing touches on anything new that we’re introducing this year or updating, but it’s also been getting the schedule finalized so we can roll that out at the end of the month. [The Outside Lands schedule was released on 7/24, shortly after this conversation took place] It’s still just being refined pretty much right up to the minute we release it. And overall, this year is a particularly tricky year for Outside Lands because we’re doing the concert the weekend after.
48 HILLS That was actually gonna be my next question, about the logistics of that Golden Gate Park Concert with System of a Down, Deftones, The Mars Volta, etc…
ALLEN SCOTT They kinda segue together, because we’re breaking down the festival. But we’re still working out deals with the different vendors and how we may have to set up differently in certain areas so we can peel it back easier. So there’s a lot of extra planning that goes into this year to make the setup and breakdown and the next weekend is as efficient as possible.
48 HILLS This is what I’d like to give people an insight into with this Q&A: The stuff that they may not consider when it comes to producing a festival. And now in this case, producing multiple festival-type events back-to-back. Because the footprint of the second weekend is just the Polo Field, correct?
ALLEN SCOTT Yeah, it’s just the Polo Field and then we’ll enter people through Lindley Meadow… well, both of the entrances that we normally use for the festival—the north side and the south side, those will stay up. We’ll use probably a little bit of McLaren Pass as some breathing room for the audience too.
It’s different because this is more of a concert. Single stage, five acts. It’s a little more straight ahead. That being said, we’re spinning a lot of things to accommodate the 50,000 people we have for the System-Deftones show. The space is actually becoming a lot smaller than we initially anticipated to get everything in: food, beverage, merchandise, bathrooms.
48 HILLS Did you expect that concert to sell out as quickly as it did, even though its held right after a huge festival? Heard it was gone in a matter of hours.
ALLEN SCOTT I expected it to sell out, but I was pleasantly surprised that it went so quickly. Pretty much all on the presale and some we held for the general. It was one of those things that just caught fire. System of A Down plays so rarely and they have such immense respect as an artist and a loyal fanbase. And then Deftones are probably bigger than they’ve ever been. Then you put in The Mars Volta and Viagra Boys and it’s a big day. But what’s interesting is 90% of the audience is coming from outside of San Francisco.
48 HILLS I figured it was gonna skew heavily out of town, but never imagined it was that big of a number.
ALLEN SCOTT Yeah, people are traveling from all over. And there hasn’t been a standalone concert that’s played in the dark in Golden Gate Park. Prior to Outside Lands, all those concerts—Pearl Jam with Neil Young, Dave Matthews Band, etc… all ended at 7pm. So this is a first, and everyone really embraced it. We also tried to counter-program it to Outside Lands. Not to say that any of these single acts wouldn’t play the festival, but it’s definitely different from what we’re currently booking there.
48 HILLS As a result of being able to hold this second weekend concert and others, the city had stipulated that you guys had to throw X number of events in and around downtown too. Was that Fred Again show in June at the Civic Center part of that?
ALLEN SCOTT That was actually not. That was Fred Again coming to us saying that they wanted to do something unique in San Francisco proper. They initially came to us wanting to play Golden Gate Park, which wasn’t going to work for a variety of reasons. So we suggested Civic Center and then Rec and Park, Mayor Breed and all the city services were very eager to help bring this event in. We explained how big a deal a Fred Again and Skrillex show was and they got it. There’s a lot of parameters in terms of how we worked and keeping the Civic Center open and City Hall not impeded during load in, so we had a lot of overnights.
48 HILLS So what are the shows that you guys are putting on as this concession for being able to throw the second weekend?
ALLEN SCOTT We did the free show July 21 with the Dirtybird Collective at Embarcadero—we wanted to do a local thing with them, and while we could’ve come in and done something really lowkey (not to say a lot of these events aren’t) we want to really try to make an impact with these events. For our company, we’re doubling down on San Francisco. This is a time when SF has been dragged through the mud for several years. We’ve heard all the stories and we’re about helping to change that narrative and revitalize these areas.
That’s why I feel like Outside Lands is more important than it’s ever been, along with the following weekend concert—and we’ll do two-three of those next year too. You know, the Fred Again/Skrillex show, was something that resonated all over the country, if not further. And it really shined such an amazing light on SF and that the city could pull it off. I love that it went so smoothly. The crowd was so great. 25,000 people, no issues. I really felt like SF shined from the people to the city and that was exciting.
48 HILLS It’s funny, ’cause I feel like when the last thing you had to do in order to throw this second weekend was to just… agree to throw more shows. Were you thrilled at that point?
ALLEN SCOTT I don’t know if we were totally thrilled at first because it’s gonna cost us a lot of money to do it to the scale that we want to do it and it’s a lot of work. But we embraced it. The next two artists that we’ll announce at Civic Center/Union Square are acts that could play the Fox or bigger and while it might be costing us more than we needed to spend, it’s important for us to make a splash.
48 HILLS Let’s jump into Outside Lands specifically for a bit here. It’s been the crown jewel for APE, and you guys have evolved these past 16 years. There’s some fun new things you have this year: the first one is an on-site wedding chapel. What’s the response been like to that?
ALLEN SCOTT I’m fairly certain we’re sold out on Friday and Saturday. People were really excited right out the gate. Someone on our team got married at Riot Fest in Chicago, and she was a big proponent of doing this. So when we were coming up with a name, we thought of “City Hall” because so many people have gotten married down there, including a lot in our office, so it felt appropriate.
We’re hoping to have some artists be surprise officiants. This year is also the 20th anniversary of same sex marriages being done in San Francisco and we’re just always trying to think of new things to do that’re fun, that’re inclusive while keeping the festival fresh over the years.
This year’s Dolores’ lineup at Outside Lands
48 HILLS You just touched on this a bit, but one thing I was really critical about early on, that I really do commend you guys for, is that you’ve seemed to make a concerted effort towards first, gender parity and diversity on lineups and letting that inclusivity trickle down into the people that come to your event.
Now you have the Latinx-focused Casa Bacardi and Dolores’—which is fantastic—celebrating local queer culture. What went into that effort over time, to take a long hard look at yourselves and be like, ‘We want to be diverse and more inclusive,’ because it wasn’t that way early on.
ALLEN SCOTT We try to evolve with the times and we try to evolve with our audience as well as being inclusive so other people to hopefully discover Outside Lands who may not have been attracted to it in the earlier years. So we’re always trying to push the boundaries as much as we can without affecting the core audience.
Dolores’ was part of the natural evolution of the festival and, and frankly, we could have done it earlier. As we’ve said before, we try to celebrate San Francisco and Bay Area culture and what makes it special. With Dolores’, we want to celebrate queer culture. It’s so important to this city and we wanted to make sure that we did it in a thoughtful and genuine way. That’s why we’ve partnered with Oasis, Hard French, and Fake and Gay. And we want to build on it because it was a big hit.
48 HILLS I think the festival has transformed into a better representation of what the city looks like. That’s the point of Outside Lands the way I look at it. The city within the city.
ALLEN SCOTT Yeah, Grass Lands is a great example of that too, we were the first festival to introduce cannabis consumption. Also important to the city. And you know this, all the stages aren’t named after brands. We name them after city landmarks—and some are more obscure than others. This isn’t a festival you can bring down to South America or put in Europe or whatever. For better or worse, it’s SF 100%.
48 HILLS Well, except for the Toyota Den, which I actually like.
ALLEN SCOTT That one won’t be back this year, but that was a hit. When we did introduce something like that, it wasn’t popping someone’s name on an existing stage. We worked with them to come up with a concept that added to the festival—with their name on it. So we’re not taking the main stage and saying, “oh its the Toyota stage now,’ and let’s move on. No, it was about finding out what we can do when they had some sponsorship dollars to get involved with this audience. So what can we do that adds to the festival and make a creative festival element. We booked it, but they underwrote the costs so it’s a win-win for the festival, artists, and partner.
48 HILLS OK, let’s talk about the SOMA Tent. Cause to me that’s the biggest change this year I’m most interested in. After some logistical issues these past few years, it’s not the SOMA “tent” anymore, it’s just SOMA, and it’s outdoors. What I like about this on paper, is that it doesn’t just feel like a way to not have to deal with inefficient ingress and faulty floors or whatever. It seems like a legit improvement. Tell me about the new area, and also, is noise gonna be a factor? Especially since we see so many noise complaints with pretty much every festival in the Bay Area.
ALLEN SCOTT When we initially introduced it in 2021 as a tent, it was for two reasons: One was to do something that limited the sound bleeding out in that area as best as we could given that we’re close to the neighbors. But we also wanted to create a different club type of environment. Then in year two we added a lot of sound baffling, but it was really hot in there and then last year we had issues with the floor that were nerve-wracking. So on Sunday of last year we moved it outdoors for the last day.
By letting it be open air on Sunday, it was also a test for us to see how the sound travels into the neighborhoods or not. We went out with decibel meters with Rec & Park out to Fulton Street and beyond, and there really wasn’t anything discernible that was coming from there. So at that moment, we knew that we could try it outdoors next year.
One of the biggest limitations were what you mentioned earlier, the ingress and egress, the capacity, the lines; we were never excited about that. But we knew we were trying something different. Like… you could be in the dark all day in that tent raging. Now it’s going to be a different experience, built around the DJ, and we’re stepping up the production because we certainly have the budget to do it without the tent and the flooring now.
The sound will be facing inward, so that’s going to help with the sound escaping over to Twin Peaks or the neighborhoods. We won’t be monitoring the capacity like we’ve had to do in the past—I think it can fit three times the amount of people that we could in the tent. I’m super excited and think it’s the biggest advancement we have this year. It’s us again trying to evolve.
48 HILLS OK… so the biggest thing that happened a couple of weeks ago that people still can’t stop talking about is how Tyler, The Creator dropped out of both Outside Lands and Lollapalooza, obviously something that seems out of your control. You guys announced Sabrina Carpenter as the replacement headliner, which look… I know it was late in the game and she had the #1 song in the nation with another one about to surpass that one too. But it did feel like a bit of a stretch to me. What’s it like to be in that position?
ALLEN SCOTT It’s not great, I’ll say that [laughs]. This was a really difficult year for headliners. Right now, we have offers out for three headliners for next year. One is about to confirm and it looks good. But this year, it was very thin on the artists that could headline. Some who were headlining festivals this year, we had booked in the last couple of years. It was tough. We were excited when we booked Tyler and he was gonna have a new album out and a new character. But that’s not happening now. And I’ll let Tyler say what his reasoning was, but he pulled out. I got on Facetime with Tyler’s manager and his agent and he was really disappointed and apologetic, but we have to accept that and move on.
Naturally the first thing we looked at, is who can we replace Tyler with that fills that slot as a hip-hop artist that fans are excited for. And there’s really not that many out there. You could name them on one hand. Unfortunately, we went after the obvious ones and they were not available.
We went through a list and one of the people that we’d been talking to about the festival since last fall was Sabrina Carpenter. There’s just this trajectory that’s been happening with her that’s rare. And we grabbed hold of that and said, ‘Let’s try something different and be the first festival.’ When we booked SZA to headline in 2022, before SOS came out, we were the first major festival to book her for that slot. She had never headlined one of the top five major fests in the country so we were early on that.
So we said to ourselves, we’d be early on Sabrina Carpenter. She’s on this rocketship… just put out an arena tour and it blew out instantly; every arena in the country added doubles. And we understood that there were people who were gonna question if she was a headliner or not. But we had that with SZA too.
48 HILLS You’ve earned the benefit of the doubt in that area for sure. I mean, you guys had Tame Impala as a headliner at the final Treasure Island festival before anyone else—and it didn’t sell out! And then next year they were headlining Coachella. So it was like WTF.
ALLEN SCOTT If you look at Sabrina right now, she’s the #4 streaming artist in the world. I know it’s pop and it’s something different than what we’ve had. But she’s really fired up for this and the show that she’s had at Coachella and Governor’s Ball were great shows. Her and Chappell Roan were probably the biggest crowds of the weekend. It really complements itself to Chappell Roan, Renee Rapp, and Fletcher this year. It’s different from what we do, but I feel like we have a wide berth with what we can book at Outside Lands. We can have pop artists, heritage acts, hip-hop acts…we can have Grace Jones on the bill for crying out loud!
I don’t think you’ll see some of the stuff we book on other festivals in the same year—not to say we don’t cross over with some fests, because we do. But because of SF and the Bay Area, we have a little more liberty to be creative with the booking. Hopefully this is another one of those that we’re out in front of, which I think we are. And we understand it’s different from Tyler and it’s not an ideal replacement in terms of 1-to-1. But in terms of an artist as relevant as can be right now, she’s one of the top ones.
48 HILLS I think that’s one of the things that your typical festival goer doesn’t necessarily understand, is how much you’re at the mercy of touring schedules… and who even is touring. Like, that’s the biggest factor top down when you start booking, right?
ALLEN SCOTT Oh it is for sure, it’s availability. A lot of these artists are on world tour schedules. You’re at the mercy of who’s touring and available. There’s also a couple European festivals that we compete with on that weekend. Way Out West in Sweden has some artists that we might’ve gone after, but ended up there because they already had their European dates around it.
48 HILLS I don’t even know if I can name mine, but what’s your favorite Outside Lands set of all time or at least the one that sticks with you the most?
ALLEN SCOTT Yeah, that’s tough, but I think it’s gotta be Paul McCartney in 2013. It was such a universal moment. Felt like everyone at the festival was there. You had a Beatle performing in Golden Gate Park. I had tears coming down my face during “Hey Jude.” It was such a moment to have an artist of that caliber. A+ musician and songwriter still on top of his game. Get this…they came in the day before and he rehearsed for two hours for his set the next day. Nobody does that at festivals. It was like an athlete practicing the day before or warming up. And it wasn’t some mailed in thing either. He delivered.
48 HILLS Last question here. APE’s presence in the Bay is just getting bigger and bigger, with the Castro Theatre and all these outdoor events. The festival kind of speaks to who you guys are as a company—so what’s the legacy you want to have?
ALLEN SCOTT In everything we do, we try to fill a need or create something new in the market. We compete against multinational companies, yet we focus on the Bay Area and Northern California—we want to be able to drive to the shows that we go to. We want to create, as you say, legacies. That’s also creating moments. And it’s so important whether people go to a concert or a festival, that you’re creating memories and moments for people. But also a time away from life…an escape, or a refuge.
Everyone in our company loves live music, the communal experience and the social experience that goes along with it. Whether that’s at the festival, or going out to dinner before a concert, getting there early, getting your spot and being with your friends, or your date. That’s what we get off on. And it’s also helping to preserve these older buildings that are utilized or haven’t been utilized at all and need staging and renovating. And that’s important too because those places will last hopefully long after you and I are gone and will continue to be our legacy.
OUTSIDE LANDS 2024 August 9-11, Golden Gate Park, SF. More info here.
