Park may be stage for more fests
By Will Reisman
Examiner Staff Writer 10/3/08
Rockin’ in the park: Tom Petty was one of many headliners who took the stage in August at the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in Golden Gate Park. Getty Images file photo SAN FRANCISCO – Radiohead made a memorable stop in Golden Gate Park this summer, but does that mean more arena-rock headliners are on the horizon?
Based on the success of the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in August, the first nighttime event in Golden Gate Park, city officials are pushing to make multiday concerts annual events in the park. But architects of the concert that brought nearly $1 million to city coffers are fuming at the proposal.
“This [proposal] very much jeopardizes the idea of Outside Lands festival returning to San Francisco,” said Gregg Perloff, one of the co-founders of Another Planet Entertainment, the group that produced the three-day festival featuring artists including Tom Petty, Beck and Lyrics Born.
Another Planet Entertainment dedicated a portion of ticketing revenue toward the Recreation and Park Department in order to stage the extravaganza. The festival contributed $815,000 to the department.
The funding stream was a godsend for the chronically cash-strapped department, and another multiday concert next year could net the agency even more revenue, said Margot Shaub, the park’s director of partnership and development.
Shaub and the department are seeking to formalize a request for other entertainment-production companies to bid on multiday events in the park.
“There is an enormous amount of interest in the festivals, and a lot of Bay Area promoters,” Shaub said. “So we think we can absolutely do better financially [than $815,000].”
But the bid request has Perloff fuming. The company had tried to secure a multiyear contract with the Recreation and Park Department to hold Outside Lands annually. He said his company’s ideas to donate revenue profits to The City shouldn’t be subject to competition.
“We worked extremely hard and we’re very proud of what we accomplished,” Perloff said. “We demonstrated we cared about San Francisco, and this is how they repay us?”
Perloff said if multiday festivals should be subject to the bid process, then so should events like Opera in The Park and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.
“I think this is a misguided attempt to gouge the company that brought more money to San Francisco in the history of Golden Gate Park,” Perloff said.
While the new process is unlikely to bring more multiday festivals to the park per year, it would guarantee one event is held each summer, with a percentage of the proceeds going toward park maintenance efforts, Shaub said.
Outside Lands was generally well received in San Francisco — the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution recognizing its success — but some residents, notably those who live near the park, cringe at the idea of huge events becoming a regular occurrence.
“People don’t understand what a huge disruption these events are,” said Ray Holland, president of the Planning Association for the Richmond, a local neighborhood group. “With all the traffic and congestion, you basically become a prisoner in your own home.”
The Recreation and Park Commission is set to discuss the bid-process proposal Nov. 20.
Outside Lands Festival by the numbers
$815,000: Revenue donated to Recreation and Park Department
150,000: Approximate attendance at three-day festival
Golden Gate Park by the numbers
13 million: Approximate number of visitors annually
1,017 acres: Size of park
174 acres: Larger than Central Park in New York City
Sources: Recreation and Park Department, Another Planet Entertainment
1 Comments
Reader Comments:
POSTED Oct 4, 2008
Seawitch: "Just because the Bay to Breakers has become institutionalized there is no mention of it in this discussion? For years many of us were and still are still "held prisoner" by that event. A the mess from that is spread throughout the city."