Looking for a massive music festival experience on the West Coast this summer? Look no further than Outside Lands in San Francisco, CA, from August 11-13, 2023, just about 2 months away. Since 2008, Outside Lands has been located in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.
Outside Lands attracts hundreds of thousands of people; last year the capacity was 220,000. This year, Outside Lands will celebrate its 15th anniversary, and we could not be more excited to return to one of our favorite multi-genre music festivals!
Check out this Outside Lands lineup!
2023 Lineup / Outside Lands
The Outside Lands 2023 lineup features world-renowned artists like Kendrick Lamar, the Foo Fighters, PNW’s very own Odesza, and Lana Del Rey, along with supporting acts such as The 1975, Megan Thee Stallion, ZEDD, Janelle Monáe, Maggie Rogers, and Fisher. With a festival this big and lineup this awesome and diverse, good luck picking which performances you see!
Food Festival?
The food here is the best festival food we have ever experienced. San Francisco is all about gourmet food, and since food prices at festivals are already expensive, it makes sense to get food that actually satisfies and looks appealing; sorry chicken tenders! The best things we ate were this hotdog, dumplings, and Hawaiian bowl.
Photo Credit: Alan Shoemake
There is even a “Gastrostage” that pairs musical artists with renowned chefs, a highlight last year was watching Illenium (aka Nick Miller) cook lobster risotto with Chef Tom Colicchio. Some of the other artist-chef pairings included Roy Choi x Dominic Fike and Binging with Babish x 100 Gecs. This stage was an awesome break to get away from the music stages and see your favorite artist in a whole different light!
Credit: Rukes
Grass Lands
Outside Lands has a separate closed off area for those who are 21+ and older and like to partake in recreational cannabis. We discovered this section on Sunday of the 2022 festival, and ended up spending a lot of time resting on the beanbags to recover from an exhausting weekend traversing Golden Gate Park on foot! In the Grasslands area you find lots of areas to chill, and many vendors including High Times, Treez, and Zigzag were selling 21+ items to those who wished to partake. Come celebrate Grasslands 5th year anniversary this year by sparking one up!
Credit: Alan Shoemake
Sustainability
Outside Lands prides itself on the amount of waste it diverts from going to landfills and remains one of the most eco-friendly festivals. Last year’s festival generated almost 360,000 pounds of waste, but 87% of it was diverted through composting, recycling and reusing. It also features a volunteer program that allows you to volunteer and pickup trash and help keep areas clean in exchange for a free 3 day pass!
For more information on joining the Clean Vibes Volunteer group, check out this link! At the festival last year we noticed how clean the festival grounds were at all times, and the amount of workers and volunteers present at all times!
Alive Coverage / Outside Lands
Transportation
Do not drive to this event and try to park outside of Golden Gate Park for this event! We made the mistake last year after not heeding other warnings, and now we are passing the same message along to you! We highly recommend relying on public transportation in the Bay Area, using the BART system or local busses to reach Golden Gate Park. Outside Lands also offers a shuttle service from the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium inside of San Francisco, which we highly recommend using!
Figure out a way to get to BGCA, and the shuttle will take you directly to the south entrance, grab your shuttle tickets here!
Alive Coverage / Outside Lands
In Conclusion…
Golden Gate Park is the perfect backdrop for a music festival, and we would love to see more curated events here. The only downside of this venue is that it is enormous, and there is so much going on it can feel overwhelming at first. There were so many people! God bless the volunteers and workers at the show for being so friendly and keeping the entire festival grounds very clean. Despite this being in SF right along the bay, the weather got hot, but bring layers as the temperature drops at night time!
On the last day we had spots near the front of the main stage, and it took us over an hour to leave the festival grounds, as we were packed in like sardines and slowly shuffled our feet along with the hundreds of thousands. When walking between stages there are many dusty areas, so we would highly recommend bringing a mask so you don’t breathe it all in. And definitely wear comfortable shoes that you don’t mind getting dirty.
Make sure you take lots of photos around the park, rest, be friendly to everyone you meet, and have a lot of fun!
Click here to purchase tickets for Outside Lands 2023, and for more information about the festival!
Check out some of our other festival guides this summer for ideas on where to go and how to have the best time! We have festival guides for Shambhala, Beyond Wonderland PNW, and Lightning in a Bottle!
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