San Francisco is doubling down on live music in Golden Gate Park, extending permits that will bring more concerts — and more crowds — to the city’s west side.
Another Planet Entertainment, the Berkeley-based company behind the annual Outside Lands music festival, can again host multiday music events on weekends before and after the festival starting in 2027.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved an amended proposal Tuesday, July 22, extending Another Planet’s permit to revive the Golden Gate Park Concerts series, produced in collaboration with the Recreation and Park Department.
Since 2024, the ticketed concert series has brought performers such as metal bands Deftones and System of a Down as well as rock group Kings of Leon to the Bay Area, using infrastructure from Outside Lands already built out on the Polo Field.
“This partnership has brought incredible live music to Golden Gate Park and free concerts Downtown while also delivering real benefits for San Francisco neighborhoods, local businesses, and our park system,” said Recreation and Park Department General Manager Sarah Madland in a statement. “We’ve seen these events successfully balance entertainment, community investment, and strong protections for the park and surrounding residents.”
Due to that success, the series will continue and will require Another Planet to host three free public concerts during the summer and fall, with Civic Center Plaza, Union Square, Embarcadero and the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater among venue options.
The amended proposal extends the permit by three years through 2029, with an option to continue until 2035. In exchange, Another Planet will pay the city an annual fee between $1.53 million to $2.295 million, an amount that could increase after 2029. The extended permit increases the company’s mandatory community fees for District 1, which includes the Richmond District, and District 4, which encompasses the Sunset District, by $10,000 from the current amount of $30,000.
The extension comes as Another Planet ramps up its local programming. The company announced Wednesday, July 22, that it’ll host a free afternoon with chillwave act Poolside. Dubbed Daytime Disco, the party is scheduled to take place Sept. 22 in Union Square.
In 2025, three consecutive weekends of concerts took over Golden Gate Park in August 2025, generating $245.1 million in economic activity across the Bay Area, with $193.1 million in San Francisco alone, according to a Bay Area Council Economic Institute report released June 9.
The weekend events, which included a three-day Dead & Company run, Outside Lands and a one-night Zach Bryan concert, attracted about 437,000 visitors and created about 1,272 full-time jobs across the nine Bay Area counties, according to the report.
“These events are more than just entertainment,” Bini Pradhan, who owns Bini’s Kitchen, a Nepalese restaurant that has participated in Outside Lands for 12 years, told city officials. “For businesses in San Francisco, especially restaurant food vendors and local suppliers, these events bring thousands of visitors into our city.”
Pradhan was among the supporters who provided testimony during a Budget and Appropriations Committee meeting June 17, noting that revenue from the Golden Gate Park concerts helped sustain her business during slower months.
Despite the concerts’ economic benefits, they also provoke annual noise and traffic complaints from residents in the nearby Richmond and Sunset neighborhoods.
Another Planet’s complaint hotline received 52 calls about noise and 23 calls about traffic during the 2025 Dead & Company concert series, while the city’s 311 hotline received more than 100 calls from Outer Richmond residents about blocked driveways.
“If I was 20 years old this would seem like a free-for-all jungle,” Outer Richmond resident Kyle Osher told the Chronicle during the concert series. “Twenty years later, at 40 years old, trying to put a kid to take a nap, it is chaos. I can hear every line from every vocal from every song.”
Still, the opposition to more concerts is not universal among residents.
“There’s a real buzz and enrichment (in) the Sunset that we really enjoy,” said Lisa Eaton of the weekend concerts during the June 17 Budget and Appropriations Committee meeting. “We make more use of the local restaurants and the businesses and the neighborhoods throughout the weekend. We invite people from the other parts of the Bay Area to stay with us, and they become locals for that weekend as well.”