Too often these days, judgment of a music festival’s merits is reduced to the “ ” question. It feels trivial, now, in our second decade of a peak music festival landscape showing few signs of slowing down, that we don’t consider everything else to be equally as important as the lineup. It’s in that “everything else” department that San Francisco’s Outside Lands has edged past other festivals over time, and demands more attention than a lineup that many thought wasn’t among the strongest in its 16 years when first announced.
The prevalent narratives about 2024 will understandably center on Chappell Roan drawing yet another gargantuan crowd, Grace Jones putting on an unimaginable performance masterclass, Kacey Musgraves joining fill-in headliner Sabrina Carpenter on stage, and . But it also absolutely also needs to be that Outside Lands 2024 was the most well-produced version of the Golden Gate Park megafest yet. Let’s be honest, if you’re dropping around $500 for 3-day GA passes (double that for VIP) you could reasonably expect a music festival to provide a bit more than just the bare essentials.
Unfortunately, the bar is set so low for festivals that if a large-scale production can make it through the weekend without anyone complaining about bathrooms, food lines, crappy cell service, or a headliner dropping out, it’s probably a good enough effort. Outside Lands took everything a step further for the benefit of attendees this year. There were once agai.