BeachLife Ranch: L.A. Beach To Host ‘Coastal Country’ Event Topped by Lumineers, Hall & Oates, Wilco, Brandi Carlile, Dierks Bentley

Following the third installment of its usual annual festival, BeachLife Festival in Redondo Beach has announced a second event, BeachLife Ranch, to take place on the same site Sept. 16-18, with a “coastal country” lineup, culinary offerings and more.

The initial BeachLife Ranch lineup features The Lumineers, Daryl Hall & John Oates,  Brandi Carlile, Dierks Bentley, Wilco, Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real, and a special performance of the “Songs Of Waylon Jennings” featuring Shooter Jennings and surprise guests. More artists are to be announced in the coming weeks.

Taking place at the Seaside Lagoon at Redondo Beach in the Los Angeles South Bay near Santa Monica, BeachLife has established itself as a three-day, 10,000+ capacity event featuring hit makers from multiple generations, two main stages and a comfortable setting in the California sun.

Taking place May 13-15, BeachLife Music Festival was topped by Weezer, Smashing Pumpkins and Steve Miller Band, with other artists including Michael Franti & Spearhead, Stone Temple Pilots, Sheryl Crow, 311, Milky Chance, Black Pumas, Cold War Kids, Vance Joy, Lord Huron, and more. Although 2021’s event took place in September with an under-10,000 capacity, this year’s event was back to normal and bigger than ever.

“Everybody keeps asking me what my occupancy is or whether it’s going to get bigger,” says BeachLife co-founder and producer Allen Sanford, who also operates the Saint Rocke club in nearby Hermosa Beach. He says Saturday sold out at 11,000 tickets, while Friday and Sunday were close behind. 

“The reason we sell out is we don’t want to have that type of festival where everybody’s crammed and uncomfortable with 30-minute lines, that’s just not our thing down at the beach. 11,000 is our self-imposed sellout. We think that’s a really comfortable level. It was crowded enough for people to feel community but loose enough where kids were still running around and people were still enjoying themselves.”

For the May 2022 event, Sanford said there was an extra emphasis on delivering the VIP experience, with doubled furniture and umbrellas, additional viewing decks and cabana spaces, as well as more food options to reduce lines. Locals are accustomed to the site, making use of bike valet, walking and ride-share, Sanford says the logistics and site layout have largely been perfected, with changes for the BeachLife Ranch in September being largely in curation and musical lineup. 

“We’ll make some fun changes in September for the Ranch, but for the most part we have a very winning formula with the egress and ingress, and the flow of the festival works really well,” Sanford adds, saying up to 3,700 bikes were parked there for the weekend. “In the South Bay, we’ve kind of already figured it out on a normal weekend. You have families and people rolling down on skates, bicycles, a huge amount of people just walk down. You go a few blocks away from the festival and you wouldn’t even know there was a festival happening.”

For BeachLife Ranch, Sanford approaches talent curation as a fan, and says the somewhat self-developed “Coastal Country” genre is a sure hit with the BeachLife crowd.

“I can’t do a full Texas country festival, it’s just not who I am,” he says, “But I absolutely love what I’ve called in my head coastal country – California country, it’s Santa Ynez barbecue, it’s Santa Maria tri-tip, country bands playing in the summer in the hot central California coast.” He says the concept is to mix that aesthetic with Americana, including pioneers in the alt-country/Americana space like Wilco and Brandi Carlile, to make a decidedly BeachLife event but with perhaps more cowboy hats and pickup trucks than usual.

“Fans can expect a completely different look, some completely different activities,” he says, adding he’s planning a trip to Texas to dive into the culture a bit more. “Then it allows me to play in an area I love which is the mix of food, music and cocktails – it’s such a beautiful place to put these together. We’re going to be doing a ton of barbecue, a ton of whiskey tasting and curation, a ton of craft beer development. It’s a very fun place for a curator.”