Outside Lands Festival - Goodbye, Get Lost, and Never Come Back

It is such a relief that I can now post this and say that San Francisco's huge disaster festival known as Outside Lands is finally over. Criticism from the commentators of SFgate and other blog sites have noted this to be an entire disaster.

It is not just the residents surrounding Golden Gate Park (the Richmond, Sunset, and Panhandle), but all the people who experienced the nightmare known as Muni and those who had to walk miles to hopefully catch the last BART and even Caltrain back home.

Also, Jack Johnson headlining? I'm going to puke. Jack Johnson sucks. They used to play his crap on one of my favorite radio stations and I called the station to tell them to kill off his songs! And you know what, they did.

So let's look at the final comments after the entire event from the Chronicle/SFgate:

From shastasky of SFgate:
"What a difference than any other concert in GG Park?! Sound out at RadioHead a few times, trampling at the fences, long lines, over-priced items, trash inside the venue and in the nearby neighborhood, a few cars broken into, one big fight (Friday)-- missed Sunday-- I could hear the music on Sunday from a half mile away. Good music-- very poor planning. Not again next year! APE should go back to Oakland! One of the promoters owns the Independent-- let's trash that place like what happened to the park! I like one day concerts in the park. This was overboard; not like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass or Green Apple. Supes Carmen Chu and Jake McGoldrick-- was it worth it to your districts and the park? 3 day events-- go to Pier 30 - 32 where the X games were held. 150,000 fans-- don't think so. Rothbury, High Sierra, etc. were better this year. Again, the planning was horrible! I'll point fingers at Another Planet, first and foremost, then Supe Chu and McGoldrick and Parks and Rec. Never again!"

From norcalguy101 of SFgate:
"Gosh...if there were only 6,000 porta-poties and 150,000 in attendance...that works out to 25 people per porta-potty...now I'm even happier I didn't "go" there..."

From wesquire of SFgate:
"WOW - way to insult my neighborhood innerrichmond - go F yourself and thanks for giving me one more reason to complain to the City about this event. The patrons were rude, walking in the middlke of the streets where there were not cross walks, doing drugs outside my house, leaving trash everywhere in the park and in the street. What pigs people are. You may be trendy, but you have no substance."

From anderthalneal of SFgate:
"GREENWASH--eco-friendly event my a$. Thousands of pounds of plastic cups, thousands of plastic wrist bands and plastic badges, tons of plastic plates, plastic forks, spoons, knives, hundreds of dorks driving in circles for hours trying to find a place to park. Tour buses idling for HOURS. Gotta get a buzz from that diesel exhaust. How much energy was used to amplify the crappy music? The only thing organic about this festival was the hippy poop."

From shastasky of SFgate:
"this is not the first concert in GG Park-- many that came before were much better planned and executed. the music was good at Outside Lands.... APE has a lot of experience, but missed this one in a big way. i think they are the 10th or 11th largest production company for these events. can you believe that?! it was deplorable considering their experience. where was the coordination with the City and MUNI-- this was on the producers as it normally at venues. most of the crowd was fine-- but there were scores of people trashing the neighborhoods both in the Sunset and Richmond. Let's see how APE responds and cleans. It is not an event for GG Park-- so many over the years have been "stellar" and a few have missed the mark-- this one was well off base. i was there Fri. and Sat. and live in the neighborhood. bad for the park, the neighborhood, and likely the city. just saying a one day gig usually works out. this one didn't; too problematic for too many people. many on these posts were there"

From dwjsf of SFgate:
"It was noisy. There was a lot of traffic. Lot of rude folks. Hope it doesn't come back next year."


In summary of this whole fiasco, the organization of the festival was poor, Muni was not prepared for the masses (screw the union), and residents of the affected neighborhoods were not notified of park road closures or received very little information (the morons of inaccurate information at 311 and the supervisor's office, and no information posted on the event's website).

The blame and my MIDDLE FINGER goes to Outside Lands, SFMTA/SF Muni, 311, 511, Mayor Newsom, Park and Rec department, San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and anyone else who played a role in this event.

Lastly...
To the organizers of the Outside Lands Festival (concert):
Bye bye! Never come back!