With San Diego Pride behind us, another huge festival approaches on the horizon in the historic venue that is San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The seventh annual Outside Lands Festival, billed as the world’s only gourmet music festival will take place Aug. 8-10, and will welcome fans from across the country as they flock to spend an incomparable weekend in one of America’s greatest parks.
Produced by Another Planet Entertainment, Superfly Presents and Starr Hill presents, in a partnership with the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department the Outside Lands Festival is a sell-out (the festival’s three-day general admission tickets sold out in a record 24 hours) as were the last three festivals. The San Francisco Examiner hailed the festival as “a must attend festival for any Northern California (or even Western United States) music fanatic,” and the Hollywood Reporter said that the “eclectic mix of artists, DJs, comedians and bands stayed true to its Bay Area roots.”
For those lucky enough to have a ticket to the festival they are in for a rare treat with an outstanding music lineup that is determinedly diverse by design. From legends and current massive hit makers like Kanye West, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, The Killers, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Arctic Monkeys, The Flaming Lips, Tegan and Sara and Haim, to indie darlings like Spoon, Chromeo, Lykke Li, Local Natives, Phosphorescent, Warpaint and Deer Tick, to electronic powerhouses like Tiësto, Disclosure, Cut Copy, Duck Sauce, SBTRKT and Holy Ghost!, to hip-hops’ Atmosphere and Run the Jewels (El-P & Killer Mike), to newcomers on the rise like Ben Howard, Capital Cities, Chvrches, Grouplove, Jagwar Ma, Courtney Barnett, Bear Hands to some of the best local Bay Area artists such as Tycho, Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers, Christopher Owens, Watsky, Mikal Cronin, The Brothers Comatose, Tumbleweed Wanderers, Finish Ticket, Trails and Ways and more, Outside Lands has developed into a vortex of vast music exploration.
Music is just part of the Outside Lands experience. Taking its well-earned reputation as the world’s only gourmet music festival seriously, in 2014, Outside Lands will once again have incomparable food and drink experiences to offer its patrons. The festival features five unique regions – A Taste of the Bay Area, Wine Lands, Beer Lands, Choco Lands and Cheese Lands and ticketholders will find more than 200 food and drink options, each epitomizing why Northern California’s culinary scene is among the world’s best.
A Taste of the Bay Area, found across the festival’s three fields in Golden Gate Park includes more than 70 restaurants and food trucks. Fans will find the region’s best restaurants and chefs, the intoxicating flavors of farm to fork foods, nose-to-tail meats and savory artisanal bites, as well as the cooking traditions of Northern California, Mexico, India, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia and Korea represented.
Wine Lands, the summer’s most dynamic wine tasting, is led by Peter Eastlake, a Food & Wine Magazine “Sommelier of the Year: 2013,” and sees 37 winemakers uncorking 120 wines. California winemakers are celebrated to the fullest under Wine Land’s ornate, burgundy and gold tent, found in the Hellman Hollow Field and adorned with chandelier lights inspired by grapevines.
Not surprisingly, Beer Lands has quickly become a festival mainstay since its 2012 arrival at Outside Lands. Found in the Polo Field, Beer Lands welcomes festival-goers with a 40-foot Neon Beer Mug reading “Ye Ol Beer Lands.” Farmhouse fencing outlines the tented area, and within the tent, visitors can unwind at its copper-topped bar to find local beer after local beer flowing from reclaimed wooden taps.
Choco Lands returns to enchant chocoholics’ every craving. Located in McLaren Pass, a wooded area of the park, Choco Lands has a Night Before Christmas meets Day of the Dead vibe and is led by San Francisco’s legendary Guittard Chocolate Company, the oldest, continuously family-run chocolate company in the United States.
Cheese Lands will feature an all-new cheese bar where artisan producers will showcase the best of the Bay Area’s locally made cheeses and engage in educational discussions with cheese lovers.
With consistently outstanding live music combined with the exceptional majesty of its Golden Gate Park surroundings and the finest food and drink found at any festival, Outside Lands has officially emerged to become one of the most revered and prominent festivals in the country.
The organizers also like to the say thank you to the city and the local communities surrounding the park by giving back in substantial ways. In its first six years, Outside Lands raised over $8.3 million for the benefit of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. Based on a 2011 economic study, it is estimated that the festival generates over $70 million annually to the San Francisco economy.
Outside Lands is truly a music and food festival that is one-of-a-kind, and if this article has whetted your appetite for this awesome event and you are lamenting your lack of a ticket, don’t worry, there is always next year!
For more information and current updates visit sfoutsidelands.com and follow Outside Lands on Facebook and on Twitter @sfoutsidelands.
