This past weekend, I was lucky enough to attend the infamous Outside Lands, a music festival in San Francisco. Outside Lands is one of the numerous amazing collaborative music festivals that are produced throughout the year. Without having ever been to a music festival before Outside Lands, I can tell you that everyone should go to at least one. This review is a tad biased and inaccurate because I was sadly only able to attend one day, which was on Sunday. However, I had a quite long, interesting and incredible Sunday.
If you can imagine, this festival is a three day-long concert and dance party. People arrive at around noon and hang out until the music begins or their artists get on stage. There’s food and shopping around the park and the festival is huge. The day was filled with nearly 70,000 people. While some people bought their tickets ahead of time, others purchased them they day before or day of. I was talking with someone recently who informed me about how they got a ticket to Outside Lands and told me that they found a staff member who let them borrow their wrist band for $150 and return it after entering through security. While this is not a common way to enter the festival, it just goes to show how popular and exciting this festival really is.
To be honest, I was a little hesitant to drop $200 on a ticket just for Sunday. But after going back and forth deciding whether I should or shouldn’t purchase a ticket, I’m incredibly glad I did. While Outside Lands may not be for everyone, the energy surrounding it is amazing. People are excited to not only be at the festival with thousands of other people and amazing artists like Kehlani, Chance the Rapper and Major Lazor, but also by getting to experience San Fracisco for a weekend. San Francisco, as we all know, is one of the greatest cities and biggest tourist attractions around. With Outside Lands just down in Golden Gate Park, people are able to get around SF and experience it all in just a few days. While the city is amazing and only encourages the energy for the festival, the artists do, as well.
Outside Lands has some of the most hip and powerful up-and-coming artists. From Snakhips to Lionel Richie, the producers of the festival truly aspire to please everyone. Unless you don’t like music at all, you will find something you like at this festival. However, there are only a few cons I’ve noticed about the weekend. While the park is prepped before hand because of the amount of people and traffic moving throughout the days, the grounds get destroyed and trashed. On top of that, the lines to the bathroom are long, and in general, the amount of people is ridiculous. The crowds of people are so insane, when a crowd is moving, you have no option but to follow. However, aside from the negative aspects of the festival, overall the weekend creates an amazing experience, a new sense of music and an incredible amount of fun.
