San Francisco's biggest music festival of the year kicked off Friday, drawing dozens of performers and tens of thousands of people to Golden Gate Park, along with noise, trash, and traffic.
Three days packed with music, food, art and likely some fog began in the far reaches of Golden Gate Park Friday afternoon with the start of the Outside Lands Festival. The event continues through the weekend. The concert is a lot of fun but keeping things orderly outside requires a lot of work. Muni did its best to move thousands of people out of the park, taking concert goers home Friday.
While festival attendees enjoy themselves inside the park, city workers are busy managing things outside the park -- whistling and waving, trying to keep things moving. Parking control officers are responding to complaints and issuing tickets. Neighbors say they appreciate the enforcement.
Parking control officers are responding to complaints and issuing tickets. Neighbors say they appreciate the enforcement. Double parking on Fulton is a popular idea to drop concert goers off but it may land you a $110 ticket.
But traffic isn't the only concern -- San Francisco police say scalpers are selling fake concert tickets. Officers seized hundreds of fake tickets so far, as some fans got up to the gate to find out their tickets were not valid.
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SFPD said more than 30 people were detained for selling counterfeit tickets, and they cited others for trying to sneak in.
Mosche Maleh bought his ticket online and came all the way from Los Angeles to see the festival, but he was not able to get through security.
"I got through two security checkpoints, and at the third one, it was just saying that it got reprocessed already, and that someone else already used it," Maleh said. "But like, it was--there was only one ticket of it, so we went to the ticket issues, and they said it's been processed like 300 times that day."
Valid tickets were sold out within 24 hours from when they went on sale, and the festival web site even warned of fake tickets sold elsewhere online.
The festival's headliners include Kanye West, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Killers, the Arctic Monkeys, Tiesto, and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Dozens of other groups, DJs and up-and-coming performers will entertain festivalgoers, who can also indulge in gourmet San Francisco food options.
Throughout the festival there will be food trucks, "A Taste of the Bay Area" event, Choco Lands, Cheese Lands, Wine Lands, Beer Lands and more tasty treats. Other attractions beyond the music, grub and libations include an art festival with live paintings, musical theater, art performances and installations.
The Barbary will offer a sketch comedy lineup in its own tent, and there will booths set up within the grounds to shop for local crafts and wares from vendors. [[270505851, C]]
Tickets for the sixth annual festival, ranging from $115 to $600, are sold out. As part of a special event this year, the U.S. Postal Service is adding a Janis Joplin stamp to its Music Icons Forever Stamp series. A first-day-of-issue ceremony was held at 1:30 p.m. Friday at the festival's Panhandle stage.
To get to the bevy of attractions and performances at the park, a private shuttle organized by the festival is running between Bill Graham Civic Auditorium at Civic Center Plaza and the park each day between 11 a.m. and midnight. There will be additional San Francisco Municipal Railway bus service on the N-Judah and 5L-Fulton lines.
Muni officials are advising riders to expect extra travel time on the N-Judah and all bus lines serving Golden Gate Park. Motorists are also advised about heavy traffic in the area.
More information about Outside Lands is available at www.sfoutsidelands.com.
These are just a few of the many citations SFPD officers have issued to people trying to sneak into #outsidelands pic.twitter.com/dGGOGWkkQQ — SFPD Richmond Statio (@sfpdrichmond) August 9, 2014
It's only 2:30 and 6 people at #outsidelands have already needed medical aid due to alcohol and or drugs. Please be safe! — SFPD Richmond Statio (@sfpdrichmond) August 8, 2014
Bay City News contributed to this report.
