Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - Outside Lands Founders on Building SF's Crown Jewel Festival & Booking Radiohead as First Act

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

Andy Frasco and Nick Gerlach welcome Outside Lands founders Rick Farman (Superfly) and Allen Scott (Another Planet Entertainment) for an inside look at creating one of America's most successful music festivals. The founders reveal the three-year process of convincing San Francisco to allow amplified music after dark in Golden Gate Park and share the story of booking Radiohead as the first band to break the 7pm curfew. Topics Discussed: The current state of music festivals and why multi-genre festivals are surviving How Bonnaroo's success inspired the creation of Outside Lands The $5 million annual park fee and tens of millions in production costs Leaving fence gaps for feral cats and other unique SF requirements Why they believe festivals need to spare no expense and do things right Their philosophy on booking emerging artists before they blow up White whale artists they've chased (Prince, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin)   We're psyched to partner up with Volume.com! Check out their roster of upcoming live events and on-demand shows to enrich that sweet life of yours. Call, leave a message: [phone]  Check out our new album Growing Pains on all platforms 5/23/25!! Follow us on Instagram @worldsavingpodcast For all things Frasco, go to: AndyFrasco.com Check out our sponsor, Gardenista: https://drinkgardenista.com/

Why did it take so long for a festival like this to come into a city like that that is so enriched with music? Is it because the city is a piece of sh- San Francisco is a city of process. Yeah. Historically, it's been kind of a nimby city, which is not in my backyard. Right. The park is right next to two dense neighborhoods. Prior to Outside Lands, no artist had played past 7 p.m. in the park.

Oh, whoa, really? Pearl Jam played there with Neil Young, although they got, Pearl Jam got sick, and Neil Young played with Pearl Jam. But nothing in the dark. So that was the big hurdle that we had with the city, is convincing the neighborhoods and the city that we could do it. We did not take no for an answer. I think we were maybe a little idealist, but I think that's why no one had tried it before. And ultimately, after three years

and a lot of conversations with the city and the community and the neighborhoods, you know, we were able to do it. I've never felt so appreciated for what we bring to this city. And the city's been very amenable to doing things out of the box that, you know, five, six years ago, they would have said no.

["The Big Game"] that five, six years ago they would have said no. And we're live. Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast. Another day, another beautiful day in Denver, Colorado, where I just have people just sleep in my house and just shit on me. Yeah. Well, she's right about most of it. We have a, I think we met our maker. I think we finally met-

Our match you mean? Our match. We met, we have a lady friend in the family now who might be able to match my best friendness energy that I have with Nick. And we should call her in. First off, hi Nick, welcome to the show. Hi. We have the founders of Outside Lands on the festival today.

Fun interview. Fun interview. Little more inside scoop about the music festival business. The guys who created Outside Lands. Inside Baseball. Created Bonnaroo. Bonnaroo, one of them did. It's in San Francisco, so this is an Outside Land festival.

But also this is a grilling festival, so we have a New York lady in building, straight from New York lady in building, straight from New York. She went to DU, I found out. You went to DU? She might be rich. Ladies and gentlemen, Eliza, get up here. Get up here.

Hurry, hurry up. This isn't like, this is a live show. This isn't your job at a startup. This is a real company. This isn't your job at a startup. Looking good. You can't just walk slow when I clap to you. Yeah, I like it. I Like it. I like it. I can't believe we're having her on the podcast. Why?

Indy's got two people here to tell him what's wrong with him Yeah, why is every relationship therapist single Thank you Nick, it's like me being a weight loss coach. Thank you Nick. All right, Eliza you're on the podcast. Hey. How's it going? So good. Even better now. So what's wrong with me?

Okay, let's start with the family. So we have your mommy issues. Mommy, yep. Sister issues. So we're sensing a theme with women. Ooh. And then we have the problems. Hold on, let me get some money. We have the problems with your girlfriends. Well, you've only had one.

I've had one. You've had one. I didn't have a problem with her. He's only 37. Yeah, I mean, not having like a high school anything is crazy. He had his teacher, so that's another problem. That's another whole thing to stack on there. Yeah. Another woman by the way. Another woman. We didn't

say what gender the teacher. Hold on, what's this thing about another woman? You don't think I like women? No, we think you like women, but that's your whole problem. So you have problems with so many women. Yeah. But explain this, like what? What do you mean? Mom, sisters. Both sisters? Yeah, two. I love my sister so yeah my sister my teacher did not a girlfriend he keeps saying it was teacher didn't assault him literally by the statutory rate yeah okay so we have that going for you um what else those are like the main ones I mean that's a lot yeah that's a lot of problems every woman in his life, so it's pretty good.

What's that saying about how I don't like women because of that? No, you love your mom so much, and then you chase that high in everyone. And they can't provide that same nurturing love because it's not maternal. You're a woman of heart. So you search for that. Like heroin. And you can't find it because you have some unresolved emptiness. Yeah, you'll never find another mommy. No-hmm. No, I don't like this

No, mommy, you called her up here. Not me. Yeah, you know you were hey, where'd you get that hat? Do you like? Do you like do you like do you think she should be our friend? Yeah, I like her We're getting getting along great today. Yeah, I don't like this and she has a friend with almost the exact same name as me But she keeps calling me gay too, and we like and we like butter bagels She's not gay, but she thinks I'm gay. You'd easily I don't think you're gay You just like give gay bestie vibes like yeah, yeah What about you what about my is

Not yet after this weekend maybe We'll see if this bill gets passed. Yeah, so not currently Maybe I'm not against it. You have a boyfriend don't have a boyfriend boy. Did you why are you in Denver? Um, I was here for a wedding. What else were you here for? Was it widespread and was there panic there was so much fucking panic I saw this video of people like running to get their seats. Yeah, did you see that? Yeah, probably the only cardio the panic fans do all year Fall he was like wasted coming up the steps fell a chit smacked his head into the rocks and we were all just like

Oh my god, I just had stood up look completely sober. He's from I don't yeah, you're even any teeth anyway, so you've recovered Wait every seats good chill That was great good shit, dude You're never coming back to this house again. Yeah, never again. That was the one and one, one and only time she's ever shown up again. When are you gonna have some, if you wanna really make your mom happy,

it's time to have a baby. What? I'm just kidding. Dude, hold on. I don't get, I don't understand the, Did you turn me down? Yeah, sorry by accident. I don't get, I don't understand the. Did you turn me down? Yeah, sorry about the accident. I don't understand the,

do I like put my mom in such a high pedestal? I don't think I do. I don't know, I don't think, I don't know if that's the. I think that's kind of wrong. You do have a special mommy bond with though, I think. That's very normal though, it's like very common. But I do like my sister, I don't like my other sister. Yeah, we won't use names,

but they probably know which one you're talking about. Well, she was saying earlier that you have issues with your sister because they were so much older and more successful than you for a long time. No, maybe they just I think my parents like them more than me. Because they didn't need money. Because they their idea of success is traditional. Getting good grades and all that. Having kids, having a job, health insurance in your 20s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's pretty normal. Right. Yeah. What else is going on, Nick? Tell them a little bit of outside limbs. It's in Golden Gate Park, it's every year, it's hundreds of thousands of people. It's a very special event because it's the first thing

with amplification to ever be in Golden Gate Park, basically. They've been doing it for a long time. I'm gonna go, I think, maybe. I wanna go too. It's in San Francisco, I love that place. Dude, I'm going, speaking of San Francisco, I am playing the Grateful Dead 60 now. They just invited me.

What's that? Oh, GD60. GD60, we're doing the night before. We're celebrating the music of Phil Lesh. Graham Lesh is on it, so head over there. What is it, your band, or on it, so head over there. What is it, your band or is it like? Just me, they're flying me in for this.

Nice. I did GD50, that was crazy. Gafferle did 50. I didn't think there would be a GD60, honestly. Yeah. Oh really? I mean, you know. Well, dead and cold, you know.

It's not just age, but it's just like a band, it's a long time to have your band go. Totally. Shout out to Gardenista, shout out to Volume. I know we did some plugs already for them. But we're inside it. Do you have any motivation? Cause I just got fucking reamed up an asshole over here.

Damn, she was really hard on you, huh? You gonna be thinking about that on your whole flight to High Sierra? No, I'll probably forget about it. Yeah, a woman said it, so you'll be over it. Shut up. I'm just kidding, I'm kidding. Motivation, no, not really, what about you? I mean, just keep going, it's summer.

Just getting your little summer groove. Have a little cocktail. Watch, are you watching Love Island? No, everyone talks about it. I haven't watched it either, but everybody is way into that. Ariana Maddox is the host. She's having her comeback moment from her reality show. Right. Yeah.

Since Tom's day. She really won that breakup, huh? I don't know who that is. Okay, so, do you have, you heard of Vanderpump Rules? Jackson, we gotta wrap it up. But maybe we'll just delete that Eliza part. People love Vanderpump Rules, actually. Yeah, so there were a couple on Vanderpump Rules.

Tom Stantonball, he's like, has this shitty cover band now. And he was cheating on her for like a year with another person on Vanderpump Rules, it ended the show the show's over now it was a whole big deal in that universe and now she's hosting the biggest reality show on TV and he's going on America's Got Talent with his bad terrible terrible cover band no shit so she won the breakup man break up oh my it's not like Charles Dolan did that too, didn't he? Charles Dolan? He had a, he has like a weird cover band. Charles Dolan.

The owner of the Knicks. Oh, James Dolan. Oh, James Dolan. Yeah, yeah, that's his kid. Oh, sorry. He has a cover band too, yeah, but he's not going on America's Got Talent and he's not getting, he's not sad.

His band's actually probably pretty good. He's got great musicians in it, but this guy's a loser and he fucked up and now he's a psycho with a terrible cover band. He can't sing for shit, but he is a good looking. He's like a model. Yeah. So he's like doing that thing where he's like in a cover band and he can't sing, but he

gets by on his looks and he's been on a reality show and everybody in the band is so dorky, dude. Right. Oh my God. It's so bad. But yeah, he won on America's Got Talent this week and it was just terrible. And she's making millions hosting the biggest daily reality show in fucking history. So it's pretty awesome and she's hotter hotter than him. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah.

So she won. Yeah. All right guys. Enjoy the outside lands interview and we'll catch you next week for a Nick solo. No, I think that was last week. It was great. So Nick and I are going to be doing a podcast. Nicholas and Andrew. When I'm back off tour and yeah, I'm like, bleeding out right now. You're gonna go to Nashville and finish that album thing you're doing? Is that what you're doing?

Yeah. That looks fun though. Yeah, I got two more songs to do. And the band's going? No. Oh, okay. Oh, they're going at the end of the month. Yeah, you said they were at the end of the month.

At the end of the month. The other episode. Oh, you're doing twice. I've gotta write the songs first with a bunch of writers. And then you bring them back to do it. Yeah. Yeah, cause I heard you on the other pod say they were coming out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'll be fun. That'll be fun. Cool. All right guys, bye. Bye. Ha ha ha. Wow, and we're here at Andy Frasco's World Scene Podcast.

I'm Andy Frasco, how's our heads? Nick, big show tonight. Big show. Or today, or whenever people are listening to this thing. It is the daytime We have another another episode of festival buyers and Promoters and this is in the Bay Area not just the Governor's Ball, New York this time. We got the other coast Alex Scott and Rick Farman from outside lands and Superfly Entertainment. How you doing boys?

We're great. I'm great. I can say that. We're doing yeah great Andy Take 17 my first question for you guys is We're jumping right in Is the music industry fucked? No, we're not we're going we no rubber. We're no rubber, we're going full in tonight, Alan. How fucked is the music industry for festivals? Or do you think it's gonna, how are ticket sales going, you think? And what do you think is gonna happen

the next three years with music? I guess I'll take that one first. Um, outside, we'll speak for outside lands, I guess I'll take that one first. We'll speak for Outside Lands, which is extremely healthy. You know, 2023, which was our 15th year, was our biggest year we've ever had. And this year seems to be on pace to do the same thing. I think in terms of multi-genre festivals, there have been some highs and lows. I think the strong right now,

unique festivals are surviving. And I think some of the smaller or festivals and markets that are smaller than the Bay Area or New York or LA are having more of a difficult time because they're drawing primarily from the local audience and not having people travel in. The trend of single genre festivals, it's been very popular for the last three or four years.

I think you're seeing some fatigue there in terms of sales, but also in terms of just the talent you can get. When you're in one genre, there's only so many acts that you can get before you have to start recycling them. I feel like the multi-genre, or excuse me, the single genre festivals have about two, three, four year life cycle before you have to kind of move on to something else. So when you're approaching a festival every year, do you know your line up, do you know your headliners in the next three years or is it something that you like to keep kind

of growing as the year goes on? We love to be nailing down our headliners three years in a day. Sometimes it's a multi-year conversation. If it doesn't work for one year, maybe it's next year or the year after, and you just keep things warm. But primarily you start talking. We're sending offers for 26 right now for headliners right now. Jesus. And then, you know, these are artists that are ready to make decisions, you know, that

we tend to not want to send an offer and wait for months and months until, you know, they decide they want to do it or do something else. So it's just a dialogue with the artists and their representatives. But the headliners are definitely booked the furthest out. Rick, tell me about this. Yeah, what do you what do you feel about this, Rick? Well, I would just add for people who aren't really familiar how this all works, that like you're not ordering off a menu. Yeah. Right.

Just think about how many things need to sort of align for an artist to show up at a particular festival, right? They have to be working at that time, not somewhere else and it has to be the right play for them in that market for both the festival and the artist, right? So that's a lot of things that sort of, you know, have to come together. You know, a lot of times when people ask us,

well, why don't you have this artist? Why don't you have that artist? It would be cool to have that artist. And we're like, yeah, of course, we would love to have those things. Yeah, yeah. But that's just not how it works, right? Right.

You're talking, you know, a lot of things just have to align. And so I think it's cool for people to understand that. Tell me about the, the, the artists, the agent relationships. So if you're getting an agent, gets their headliner to you, how many of their other bands can are that you have to book to like kind of wiggle room into your festival? You know, it's, it's different with each artist or each agent.

Some are a little more pushy than others, but it's not obnoxious in terms of usually it's maybe one request for another kind of baby artist that you really want to help. We have, you know, 90 to 100 acts out there and not a lot of filler. So we try to really book it for what the artists, or excuse me, the audience wants rather than, you know, doing a lot of favors. Yeah, so when you're curating a full day of music, what's your vision of how the festival should start at 12 or to the closer? Do you have a wavelength? I think of it like a set list where you have these movements going through the sets.

Do you have that same vision when you're curating a lineup day by day? We start kind of top down and at Outside Lands, you know, some festivals that each stage will kind of move all over the place between genres, we tend to take a stage and take the closer and then build off of that closer. It's not perfect. We don't always nail that, but that's kind of the vibe. It also helps us balance the lineup frankly when we do that. We try not to be right in your face when we open. Death grips or something.

It all depends on the day. We really try to think about Sundays. We like to try to do something on the day, you know, we really try to think about Sundays. We like to try to do something kind of gospel-y or almost churchy. And this year we have Big Freedia with Gay Men's Chorus, which is kind of on the main stage. They won't be first up, but they'll be early in the day. And that was very deliberate early. So what was, tell me the beginning of this festival.

What curated this idea of Outside Lands and how did you guys get to know each other? Well, it really came together over, you know, our companies trying to do, find a way to work together. We had met really early on in the evolution of Alan's company and Other Planet. And when Superfly, my company, was just sort of experiencing the creation of Bonnaroo and all the opportunity that came from that. And I think one of the things that Alan and I connected on very instantly was the fact that the Bay Area

is just this incredible music market. It's got this incredible heritage. There is this unbelievable site in Golden Gate Park that obviously has a history and heritage unto itself of groundbreaking music events happening there. And we just started to sort of pound the pavement and think about like, hey, the Bay Area is a spot that should have a great music festival, right?

And we were almost sort of searching to understand why it wasn't happening. And I think the answer was really that just nobody had took the initiative to go do it. Alan and I were both younger entrepreneurs who were not gonna take no for an answer kind of thing. We really benefited from the fact that Alan's two partners are some of the most established producers, concert promoters in the Bay Area.

And so we just forged this awesome thing where we were like Superfly with this festival being known as producing these festivals. Another planet was the premier promoter in the Bay Area. We both saw this window of like, hey, the festivals are starting to rise nationally. You know, there was this model of the city festivals starting to do pretty well. And here's this just, again, top five music market that doesn't have one of these things

in the perfect location to do it. It was a three year process from the time we started talking about it to get it there. There was a lot of hurdles we had to overcome, but the concept from the get-go was pretty obvious, is like, let's do something that's really representative of the Bay Area, that sort of showcases not just, you know, kind of its importance as a music market,

but also all of the other amazing cultural opportunities that exist here. So my question is, like, was such a in-depth and Enriched community. I went to SF State so I understand San Francisco and Why did it take so long for a festival like this to come into a city like that that is so? Enriched with music is it because the city is a piece of shit. Like what is it? Give me the dates Is it the government? It was the dirt what? Well, first I want to say, you know, getting the opportunity to work with Rick and his

team at Superfly was really an honor. I had been to Bonnaroo before and was super impressed with what they had built. I mean, it's a super, it is a special festival and continues to be. You know, when they first announced it, the first one, and went over email and there were some rumors, I was like, this isn't real. There's no way this is real. Prank. Yeah. This is a great idea, but this is not real. Right. And then they announced it.

And one of the few times in my life where I was envious that, whoa, they came up with this idea and are doing it. And not only that, but blew it out. But so anyway, I just wanted to add that, because that's important to us. But the city, San Francisco is a city of process. And it's also, historically, has been kind of a nimby city, which is not in my backyard. Right. And it's also, historically, it's become a NIMBY city, which is not in my backyard.

Right, yeah. And the park is right next to two dense neighborhoods. And prior to Outside Lands, no artists had played past 7 p.m. in the park. Oh, whoa, really. In fact, we did date Matthews in 2004, and Rick and his team was out there, we met there and that was some of the genesis of Outside Land.

But you know, Pearl Jam played there with Neil Young, although they got, Pearl Jam got sick and Neil Young played with Pearl Jam. But Guinness Qua, there was Tibetan Freedom Festival, that happened out there, but nothing in the dark. So that was the big hurdle that we had with the city is convincing the neighborhoods and the city that we could do it. And like Rick said, we did not take no for an answer. I think we were maybe a little idealist, you know, but I think that's why no one had tried it before.

And ultimately, after three years and a lot of conversations with the city and the community and the neighborhoods, you know, we were able to do it. But I would say since COVID, there's been a different attitude in the city. I could speak for myself, and I've never felt so appreciated for what we bring to this city. And the city's been very amenable to doing things out of the box that five, six years ago, they would have said no. And that includes these additional concerts in Golden Gate Park, which we're doing with the Zach Brian

show. It also includes, we did this Fred against Skrillex pop up in front of City Hall with 25,000 people. You know, these are things that we would've been shut down on in the past. And so it's an exciting time. So how long did it take for you to, for them to convince that you guys are their guys

to run these shows? Like, what was the first year like? Were they like up your ass about everything, or did they kind of give you a little leeway to, like, do your thing and see what you could bring to the community? I wouldn't say there was a lot of leeway. They had a lot of questions, and we, you know,

we have a great team between us and Superfly, um, and there's a lot of crossover people who've worked together in the past. And, you know, a lot of, you. And a lot of suggestions came from the community. For instance, people, previous concerts were blocking people's driveways. So we had to get parking control officers out there and tow trucks that we hired.

People didn't know that an event was taking place and they couldn't prepare. So we have to do a mailer to 28,000 residents that surround the park talking about road closures and hours of the festival. We have to set up a community hotline where people can call in and point, we adjust the volume or the direction of the speakers based on the wind or fall or marine layer or whatnot. Wow. You know, we even had to leave breaks in the fences for feral cats to get through. I read that. That's crazy. That's wild. We do a lot. That's just touching, you know, we have to

provide shuttles. We have arborists out there. You know, it's not for the fate of heart to pull this off. The failed cat thing is fucking wild. By the way, by the way, by the way, city of San Francisco, cats can get over fences. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They weren't participating in that. I mean, Rick, tell me about, okay, what's the difference between Manchester, Tennessee and San Francisco, California? You know, like, what's, what type of protocols did you have to do for Bonnaroo? Much different. No doubt about it.

You're not in a neighborhood. I think there's a common thread in a couple things, which is just like, you know, when you sort of say, do what you know, you say you're going to do. And when you're honest with public officials and communities about what doing something like this is, you generally get credit for that. Right. And that's been our experience, certainly was in Manchester where they had no idea what something like this would be like. And we told them exactly what was gonna happen

for the most part the first year with traffic, with the type of crowd that was coming, all the different things that were gonna go on. And whether they believed us or not at the beginning, after it happened that way, they were like, all right, you guys did what you said you were gonna do. You told us what was gonna happen. Now there's a trust established.

In the Bay Area, it was a little different for a couple of reasons. One is just more experience hosting large scale events in general and the park in general. And then the experience of, you know, like Alan was saying, like our teams, a lot of the people that produced this the first year had already worked in Golden Gate Park before and had deep relationships with people, you know, whether it was, you know, the fire chief or the police department or, you know, the district supervisors, there

was relationships there already. And I think because, look, one of the things that, why this worked with another planet and with Superfly is we kind of share the same values, right, of what we're in this for is to create an amazing event, an amazing experience for the city, for the community, for the artists, for everybody, right? And we know that the money will follow that. So what Alan was talking about before, all those things we had to do, those are expensive things. And that's just like the tip of the iceberg, right? Our philosophy, both of our companies, is like spare no expense.

Like do it first class, do it right. And if you do that and you're honest with people and you're straightforward about things, then I think as long as your product is good, you're gonna have success. And I think that's what happened with us, is we just kind of approached it from the right way. That's why it ended up being as successful as it has been.

I mean, this is why you're king. That's why I'm going to clap. Yeah. Just can't, that's such a good point though. It's true. Can't get anywhere. Cutting corners early. No.

And like, but how do you know what the corners are to cut when it's your first festival? Like, how'd you know this whole big plan, Rick? Like when you're going into Tennessee, you had no, like, give me your game plan on that first ever boner room. I'll tell you, it's two things, right? It's what I said before, it's just having values, and look, we're fans, right? Like, you know, we would be some of the first people

to buy tickets to these experiences if it was somebody else doing it, right? Or be jealous as heck or whatever. We love stuff. And so it starts from that, hey, what do you want to experience as a fan, and how you put yourself in those shoes? And then the second thing is assembling

a team of people that are really experienced and share those same values. I'll give just a quick example of somebody I just want to shout out. There's this guy, Russ Bennett, who is a thread between the early fish festivals, Bonnaroo, and Outside Lands. He was sort of like the creative production guy. But one of the things that Russ has taught us as kind of early event producers, festival producers, was to really like in all your planning, think about what the fan experience is. Right. Like think about where the bathrooms are and do you want that close to this art thing or not because it's all about creating this, you know, totally, you know, complete immersive experience

around what the fan journey is. And so I think it's things like that, right? It's like finding people who have that level of experience. That's how you get from being kind of young concert promoters that we were, to doing some of the biggest events in the world, is by really finding the right people who share those values and empowering them

to do a great job. Were you self-financing these, your first festivals, Alan and Rick? How did you convince people to give you money to get Radiohead or fucking? What was your pitch like to these people to say, hey, we have this big idea for this really big festival. Like, tell me what young Rick and young Alan are. Alan and I are blessed because we have a couple people that are partners with us who are more established, older industry pros that are our supporters. And so Alan has partners that have

had the capital, had the experience to do that. And then we had a partner also in Corrin Capshaw, who's one of the great managers of the world, Red Light Management. And so Corrin and Star Hill were also a part of this. So this was a big part of how we did this too is we partnered with, you know, the sort of the generation above us and really got the benefit of, you know, that and to their credit, they had faith in us, right? They saw us and understood that, hey, we're like ears to the ground fans, we understood how to do this, we're hard working. That's really, you know, kind of how this all came together.

Alan, do you have anything to say about that? Did they think you were naive at first? Or did they think this is actually some great idea? They believed you right away. They believed you right away? I think everybody realized the potential and the opportunity here. It was obvious to I think everyone once we sat down and said, let's do it. It certainly helps, with the first year, we were gonna do two days, Saturday, Sunday,

and Greg Perla, one of my partners, had a great relationship with Tom Petty, so we got him locked in as the headliner. And then Jack Johnson on the other day, whose agent is a friend of all of ours, are both super flying us. And then Radiohead came to us Oh my god, and we added the Friday and I'll tell you if you ever want to start a festival

book radiohead 2008 right that day did us we were our capacity was 60,000 and they Sold that quickly and that kind of carried the weekend we had really thought we had made it and then in lost money the next year, but But it was uh It was a great conversation like when you found out you got radio What was that conversation?

It was like signal gate, you know, we were all like like American flags and fist pumps and stuff like that on There was no text. I don't think back then we're probably on some flip phones Yes, but no we were excited. We what we knew what we had I mean it was you know Radiohead at that time They were just putting out in rainbows or between when we announced in the festival Holy shit, that's the one. They were the first act to ever play in the dark in Golden Gate Park. That's crazy God so yeah people talk about that Festival promoters just make a bunch of money

They don't realize how much it costs to make a festival. Why don't you remind people how much it is to build a festival like this? It's tens of millions of dollars. I mean, the park itself, we pay the city $5 million in rent plus all city services. It's an extraordinarily expensive market. And you know, anybody thinks promoting is easy, I suggest that they take out like get $100,000 of your own money, put

in your driveway, put some lighter fluid on it, light it on fire. And if you don't stamp it out, you can be a promoter. I'm gonna clap for that. That's actually pretty good advice, Alan. I like that. I like that. But, you know, like, were there any years that you just kind of missed? Like you missed on the booking or missed,

didn't sell well? Or weather. Or weather, something happened? Like, do you have any, like, a nightmare year? Well, I'll mention one thing here, which is, you know, this was not an instant success. I mean, in some ways it was because, hey, we were fortunate enough to get Radiohead and, like Alan said, the other great artists in that first year. And the first year was a success. We had a lot of challenges the second and third year. And to our partners' credit, they really said, let's keep going.

No fear. I believe in 2008, there were five festivals that started nationally. And the only one that's still surviving is Outside Lands. The other four are gone, never to be heard from again. Oh my God. So, this is an incredibly difficult sort of business to be in and to be successful. There's generally more failures than there are successes if you look at the festival landscape. And so, look, we're really proud of the fact

that we've persevered and created this. And we don't take any of it for granted. Every year, we're 100% focused on delivering the best show. Because if we don't, it ain't going to work. What's your philosophy on day shows and camping festivals? Do you think camping festivals are having lower attendance than just people leaving the park at 11 and doing what they've got to do?

Or do you see success in both of them still? I mean, I generally think it's kind of an all of an ebb and flow of these things, you know, like Like anything in entertainment. There are some things that are in vogue at certain times and You know then that tension shifts elsewhere and all of a sudden it comes back. You're like, oh my god, that thing that was popular 10 years ago is now popular again now. And so I think if you take the long view, also just think about we're really still

in the earlier stages of the festival business in America. It's certainly more mature than we started, but prior to what we were doing here, there really weren't a lot of these types of festivals in America. There was some legacy stuff, but most of this stuff was really only happening in Europe. It wasn't happening here. The concert promoters here generally built amphitheaters and tried to fill those during the summer. Right. Right. So you're really talking, you know, 20, 25 years of sort of a festival in the modern sense, you know, business being prevalent here in America. And look, back then, one of the things we had to do is even

just get local consumers to understand what a multi-day festival was, what the value of it was. Right. And so I think you're gonna just see a continuum of like, hey, sometimes people are like, I wanna go do that Foley thing where I can camp for four days, and then other people are gonna be like, hey, I just wanna be there for a weekend, or I wanna go to a single genre festival,

or I wanna just go to a stadium to see the biggest artists. All of that is generally cyclical, and you just have to follow it as best you can. Hey Rick, you said something interesting there about we had to teach people what a multi-general festival was, what a multi-day festival, understand the value, the ticket price value. When we started Outside Lands, the only social media at that time was Twitter was pretty nascent and then Facebook was only on colleges.

It wasn't like it just spread like wildfire. People were emailing it to other people at that point. It wasn't like everyone knew how a festival worked. You know, there was Lollapalooza, Coachella, ACL, Bonnaroo, and that was kind of the big ones then. So what was your philosophy in promoting it? How did you promote that festival to get the word out? I mean, we were still doing print advertising. Oh my God.

Rolling Stone magazine, baby. Wow. We have a really large database, Another Planet does, of emails. We were doing concerts in the market since 2003. We had a good database of consumers or fans, and we were able to hit them. Like Rick said, it was a growth. It took a few years for the city to embrace outside lands. And once they did, it was kind of off to the races.

What's the demographic between people who are from the Bay Area that go versus people that travel from around the country to go to it. It's about a little bit more than 50% right now. So almost close to 75% are from the Bay area. Crazy. Yeah, it's like 50 to 60% in the Bay area and the rest from outside. Yeah. One of the things that's really interesting about outside lands, I don't think people who haven't been to it or here sort of maybe don't recognize as much. I think it's one of the most multicultural audiences that are out there.

We have a very significant percentage of Asian-American, Latino-American, African-Americans, more than 50% of the audience. It's also more than 50% of the audience. It's also more than 50% of the audience is female at Outside Lands. Really? That's awesome. It's great. It's really, you know, I'm not sure there's any other festival nationally that has that

kind of similar demographics to it. And I think it's obviously because of the Bay Area is this amazing multicultural place and you know, the programming that we're doing, we're trying to make it as inclusive and interesting to as wide a group as we can. That's fascinating. That's awesome. I'm curious about how do you convince an artist or an agent to pick your... With the inflation of how much everything's costing these days, how

do you convince a headliner to do your festival versus them just doing it on their own? It used to be easier when there were less festivals and less opportunities for these headliners. Now you're kind of catching artists in this sweet spot, right? They're kind of but they could maybe sell out arenas, but they're not quite stadiums and they could really benefit from the exposure of a festival like outside lands, you know, we get the weekend as they

Grow, you know and acts that, which now do stadiums and are not going to necessarily come and play the festival, never say never. But it's like that. So Doja Cat's an example. All of these artists that we have this year are examples of that. Hosier is doing some stadiums this summer, but primarily doing, you know, amps and arenas and, you know, that's kind of how it... there's very few headliners too, by the way. Very few out there. Oh yeah, I never thought about that. There's like not a big pool of people that can draw that well to headline it.

I mean, yeah, I mean, it's tough. Like, any pitch me moments when you see like, I can't believe I just booked this guy on my stage. Any pitch me moments for you guys? Paul McCartney? Which one? Give me a couple. Every year. Give me some goosebumps. Give me some goosebumps. I mean, Paul McCartney's one that was just I mean probably my hands on my favorite headlining

set ever. It's so universal. You know the Beatles are in our DNA and to see just the multi-age groups that are out multi-generational out there. You know I literally was shedding tears during Hey Jude, it was so powerful to be in the park. And it's like, wow, you know, we did that. I think there are kind of these two or three categories of pinch me moments. There's the legends, right? Yeah, that's what we're talking about. Like, you're

just like, oh, my god, I can't believe we have Stevie Wonder at our festival or something like that, right? Oh my God, this is amazing, right? And then there's where you see one of these younger acts that just go from one level to the next. Yeah. At a festival, and all of a sudden it's like, you know, five o'clock in the afternoon and there's, you know,

50,000 people in front of an artist that's never had that kind of crowd. A lot of festivals experience that, you know, last year with Chappelle Rhone. Yeah. There's also sort of a version of that where you have like, you know, maybe like a legendary act that's not like, you know, massive act, but still like, you know, maybe like a legendary act that's not like, you know,

massive act, but still like, you know, a really established one. Like I think it was Hall and Oates that we had here. It was like the right time of day, you know, the right artists, everybody knew the songs, you have, you know, 40, 50,000 people singing together, those are the magic moments. Those are the things that we do this for. Yeah, that's why you do it. This is why, before I was a musician, that's where I was prepping for. I was a promoter, I was booking shows for Capitol Records

at the Key Club and the Roxy. That was like, my whole education was music business, and I fell in love with the music and I read Donald Passman's book, and those goosebumps moments are the reasons why we do this, and you know, I'm curious about, have you ever been like two years too early, like you're taste makers, have you ever been like two years too early on an act,

like this band's gonna be huge It just you just got them too early All the time we are yeah, I mean that's one of me Any booking team do incredibly well? Let Alan speak to it is just like how you kind of recognize where some of these artists are going and it's a nice part About a festival is you could kind of have somebody early on and then a couple years later Have them bigger and you know during with them Yeah, what's your philosophy about that a little bit when my daughter tells me? Man, you should book such-and-such on the festival and I'll be like well we had them last year I'm cooler than you

Listen I already knew about yeah What are you a boomer? What are you a boomer? I already did that. I kind of a question about lineups. Do you have like a white whale artist that you've always dreamed? Might be hard with the great Axie book. Is there like a white whale that you want to have that you haven't been able to get yet?

For me personally, like some of the big white whale stuff are like bands that aren't really bands anymore. They're still sort of still around like a Led Zeppelin or a Pink Floyd, right? Right. I think our heads would just explode if we could get artists like that to play, right? Those are the ones that kind of stick out for me. There's probably some other legend stuff that we haven't yet done. Fortunate, but between Al and I, we've done a lot. Yeah. Yeah, one of the, no longer alive, but we wasted a ton of time over the years

trying to book prints. That was like, you know, trying to catch a wet pig or a chicken or something in the back, you know, trying to get it, it was just not gonna happen. Oh man. That'd be incredible though. Any close, like almost close? And he's like, nah, I'm good.

Doesn't he have a different agent every six months? Close, not close? Again, how close are you to grabbing that, you know? Man, I got it. Like, might have it in your hands, but a couple times we thought we had a decent shot Hey, we also a few a few years ago. We were really close on Fleetwood Mac That is that ship has sailed unfortunately, but we felt good that it was gonna happen and then it

Don't think I'll ever have Hey Rick, I got a quick question about Bonnaroo. You guys had a great comedy tent. What happened to that? Well it Sort of after our time we don't we no longer produce Bonnaroo, so I think it went away if I remember correctly So I think it went away, if I remember correctly, after our time there. But you started that. That was like your brainchild, right? Having a comedy tent? Yeah.

It came from... One of the festivals that really inspired me was a festival called Lowlands. Oh yeah, I played that. Amazing festival. Where's that? In Amsterdam. Or Netherlands. Well, it's about yeah, about an hour to outside of Amsterdam. It's it's in Holland. And it really, when I went there, I want to say in 2003 or four, for me, it was like this

experience of like, looking into the future, like seeing what a festival could be like, you know, with a more mature festival industry, which was there in, in, you know, Europe, and like a festival that had been around for 10 or 15 years, whatever it was at the time was like, Oh, my God, like, you could do all of these other amazing things, present all these other amazing things, present all these other amazing arts.

I remember going into this kind of theater stage they had, and they had a bunch of different types of performance art, dance and stuff like that. And I couldn't even understand any of the comedy because it was in Dutch. But I just remember looking around at the audience and being like, oh, that's fricking awesome. Like that really could translate.

The other quick thing I'll just mention that I got out of that experience, I think that, you know, I was sort of the person who stole the idea of the silent disco from that event. Oh wow. And brought it to America and we started doing it at Bonnaroo And then it's kind of, you know,

obviously kind of gone to other places and other formats. But, um, you know, I, I remember seeing the their little version of the Silent Disco there and just being like, Oh my God, like that is the coolest thing. Like people at Bonnaroo festivals would go nuts after that. So, yeah, it's cool to be able to sort of mine some of these other things and take some of that stuff back to what we do.

Rick, do you mind if I ask you something personal and then we'll go back to Outsideland? Bonnaroo was your baby. Take the money out of it. How hard was it to sell it? You know, there was an emotional thing that was hard to do. Right. I'm not going to say it's zero.

Like, we care and still do care a lot about that event. I still go to it every year. Really grateful to the team that produces it now because I think they're doing a fantastic job. And I think like the way that the festival continues to have new experiences added and the amount of sort of, you know, things that they've done to improve the consumer experience is awesome. And so to answer your question, Andy, it's sort of like, and I'm not at this point in life, but it's sort of what I imagine. It's like to have sort of your child leave the home

and go be an adult, right? Oh yeah, that's heartbreaking. There's just something, you know, like for us, there was a part of it actually that was sort of kind of like a letting go experience that was really positive. It was like, hey, you know what? We're always going to have been a part of this thing. This thing now can go on and live on its own because of what we've created and the opportunity

there for it to be something that you know, that hopefully transcends us in all capacities is there. And I think that was a big part of what like made us comfortable with it was just that idea of being comfortable with letting go and feeling like we were leaving it in good hands. Yeah. Rick just won a bigger wardrobe budget. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

It was nostalgia, and then he saw the ATM withdrawal. Exactly. Well, maybe it's nostalgia. No. We need more Timotetan shirts. No, but we did make very nice robes last year. Somebody made us very nice superfly robes, because one of the things at Bonnaroo when we were there

was the robe rage, the party that my partner, Kari, created at our Snake and Jake's barn. You had to have a robe to get into it. And so we'll need these really nice super fly robes that I'm happy that we have. Pretty cool. And then one thing led to another,

and now you guys are partners. Now you and Alan get to be buddies and do the whole thing again. I mean. Be an empty nester what what it out what have you learned from Rick and vice versa I mean so much I mean Rick and his team is so creative just what they did with Badaru is just you don't see that around the country in terms of all the festival elements, just like he just mentioned, Snake and Jake, is that what it is?

Rogue Rage, and The Comedy Tent, and The Cuckoo Clock, and you know, there's so much stuff. So one of the things they instilled in us when we started, because we were concert producers, not festival producers, although Greg and Sherry, my partners, had done the Us Festival in the early 80s with Steve Wozniak and other stuff, but no modern day festival. They taught us that let's take a portion of our budget, our sales, and put it towards

these other elements in the festival that you can't say, you can't quantify it, but you could qualify it as being something really cool. And we continue to just use that ethos today. I mean, it's always, we're always trying to think of things that are, what fresh things can we do? What can we lead in? I think Rick would tell you that, you know,

inspired by Jazz Fest, we were really the first festival to put gourmet food at a thing. We have San Francisco, some of the best food in the world. And today we have a hundred restaurants and some like 700 menu items. That know, that went for beer had been done before and they'd done it at a bar, but wine hadn't been done. So we have wine lands and that now we have grass lands where you can, I think is the only major festival with the consumption area and with bud tenders. Oh wow.

I might add. Oh hell yeah. But you know, it's taking that ethos as like Rick said, it's not like trying to drag every dollar out of the ticket or whatever. It's like, let's put it back. Let's give the audience an unforgettable experience. Right.

And I mean, you're building community. This is why we go to festivals. This is why I'm in the music industries. Why I'm a festival band is because I love the community that these festivals, when I was 21, getting booked at Waka Rusa or just like these festivals. And I just remember that forever, the community you built from there and you build your friends for life and you bringing back to the community just makes them want to be more loyal to you guys. So like for that, thanks for just being,

meeting us in the middle as a fan, you know, not even as a musician, as a fan, just thanks for thinking of us too. So thanks. Yeah, and just taking the risk in general. Yeah, and thanks for putting some money out there. I appreciate it, Big Doc. Someone's gotta do it, you did it, boy.

Someone's gotta do it, you gotta do it. Someone's gotta light that cash on fire in the driveway. Yeah, someone's gotta light that cash on fire. All right, guys, I'll let you go. I know you're busy for booking and doing your thing, but thank you so much for your time. We will be going to Outside Land. Oh cool, are you guys coming this year?

We might. We might, now we might go, yeah, yeah. We might hit you up for some fans. Oh, right, now it was you're going, now it's Mike. What's going on? Oh yeah, I think, by the way, I don't wanna blow your cover, but we might be seeing you at one of our venues next year Yes, I I asked I asked to play the independent. Thank you so much. Yeah for taking that

Committing to being there, Andy. I mean, Bon Giorno speaks so highly of you guys, and you know, Ivory Day. You know, they're my team. And I'm just honored to talk to two legends about you guys built this thing from the ground up. And you guys are humble and you're not assholes. And I just want to say thank you for not being dicks. Yeah. It's always fun to talk to people that are... It's always fun to talk to people that are, it's always fun to talk to people.

Low bar. Oh, no. Yeah, there's a lot of promoters that are kind of like, just, you know, sharky. And it's always fun to talk to people that are smarter than you. Oh yeah, I love, I feel dumb in this conversation. I know.

So thank you so much for teaching me the ways of the festival. I got one last question for both of you, and I'll let you get back to changing the world via music. When it's all said and done, what do you want Outside Lance to be remembered by? Tell him, boys.

Well, you know, I think the mission of it, the mission of it has always been to sort of be really representative of what's so special about the Bay Area. This festival brought me to living here. I've been living here now for 16, 17 years, the quality of so much of the experience in the Bay Area, of San Francisco, of the sort of art, music, culture, you know, the social culture that exists here. It's just a really unique place in the world. And the fact that we get to express that through a festival

in such an like incredibly beautiful place as Golden Gate Park and such a unique venue that it is, we want that to be the thing that like people are like, yes, this is what the, an encapsulation, a love letter to the Bay Area in many senses. Yeah. What about you, Alan? I mean, I'll just piggyback on that

because that's exactly right. We wanted to create an iconic event, something that is creating a legacy here. And when people think of San Francisco, want them to think of outside lands as well, just like they do about its restaurant culture and its wine culture and its art and music, certainly. We just wanna be part of the fabric of San Francisco.

And I think we've done that. And hopefully, my daughter is 17 and she was born the year of the festival and she's gone in some paper form every year but now she comes with all her friends and she's telling me what to program and telling her friends she's an artist. She's like my dad books that festival. You still have to pay full price. You still have to pay full price. She'll tell her friends that she told me to book an act and that's why it's yeah

No, would you pass if she asked that you know if you know as we get older in life And she says I want to run this thing would you pass the torch door? I'd love her to work at another planet. I'm trying to get her to intern here soon. I mean she's a sharp cookie Yeah, talk about talking well. mean, she's a sharp cookie. Yeah. Talk about talking. Well, she thinks she's smarter than she is. Sam would do a fantastic job. Emmett too. You know, the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. I've seen these kids grow up. They're, they're, they're being very capable when they get there.

Well, hopefully we'll be booking Frasco at six years old. He's like, hey, just push me in the cart, baby. Just push me onto the stage. Get the heritage act. Andy Frasco. Andy Frasco. I'll be in the heritage act. I'll see you over there 2000.

They'll be wearing their white whales. Yeah, yeah. Frasco there. Frasco, 2054. We'll see you there. White whale, a goldfish. Just a silver fox, Jewish afro. Here we go. All right, we'll see you there. Not a white whale, a goldfish. White whale, just a silver fox Jewish afro, here we go. All right, boys, enjoy your night, be safe out there,

keep kicking ass, I'm Ruinyan, love you guys. Yeah, you guys were awesome. Thank you, cheers guys. Bye. Bye.