The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a 10-year permit extension for the Outside Lands music festival on Tuesday, extending the city’s contract with event production company Another Planet Entertainment through 2031.
The popular festival, which debuted in 2008, draws hundreds of thousands of attendees to Golden Gate Park every year. According to Dana Ketcham, the Recreation and Parks Departments’ permit director, last year’s festival resulted in an estimated $66 million economic impact on the city and created 700 jobs.
The board’s decision to extend Outside Lands’ permit came after an appeal from two residents, Andrew Solow and Stephen Somerstein, who lobbied for a maximum decibel limit as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Their attorney cited an increase in noise complaints about the festival; indeed, there were 212 Outside Lands-related noise complaints in 2018, a big jump from 80 in 2017—though it’s unclear whether the festival got louder, or neighbors became less tolerant.
“We don’t want to shut it down. We want it to continue, we want to continue those good jobs, we want to continue the tax revenues coming into the city,” said the appellants’ attorney, Richard Drury. “We just want a noise policy that’s enforceable and reasonable.”
The Board of Supervisors opted not to impose a decibel limit as part of the permit extension.
