Another Planet’s Golden Gate Concert With System of A Down, Deftones Draws 50K

Could “country, K-pop or heritage artists” be next?

SAN FRANCISCO — On Aug. 17, System of a Down and Deftones headlined a sold-out concert in San Francisco, the debut of the new annual Golden Gate Park Concerts Series. The event was created by independent local promoter Another Planet Entertainment, the company behind the popular Outside Lands music festival, which wrapped its 16th edition the previous weekend (Aug. 10). The concert used the megafest’s scaled down infrastructure, including the main Lands End stage, to host the one-off event.

According to the promoter, 50,000 tickets sold out in 95 minutes, which followed the 200,000 who attended Outside Lands the previous week.  The lineup also featured the Mars Volta, Viagra Boys and Vowws. Tickets for the all-ages event were priced at $169 plus fees for general admission, and $399 plus fees for VIP admission (napkin math would put the gross at more than $8.5 million). The latter premium space included a covered viewing area, exclusive food vendors and reserved space at the front of the stage.

“In 2023 we were giving a tour of the site to (San Francisco) Mayor London Breed,” explains Allen Scott, Another Planet’s president of concerts & festivals, when asked how the post-fest concert series idea came about “We had talked with the park about doing concerts the following weekend, but not doing a second weekend. Unfortunately, the demand is not quite there for two weekends—it’s a lot of tickets for this market to handle based on the entire market….We didn’t necessarily think that was viable. So we said we would love to leave the main stage set up and do single stage concerts in the park and that was the genesis. We worked on that and got it approved this past September. We put it together with  the Deftones and System of Down’s management, Velvet Hammer, and it turned out to be a home run.” 

Indeed Another Planet shared that 90% of ticket buyers traveled from outside the area and included all 50 states. A subreddit (web forum) dedicated to the topic contained people asking for advice for traveling to San Francisco and Golden Gate Park from out of state (and even as far as Guatemala), and information about meetups that were organized for out of towners to connect and go together. Another Planet offered official paid shuttle service from Sacramento, which is also the Deftones’ hometown (and where Another Planet is building a new 2,150-cap venue Channel 24), for which tickets also sold out.

Outside Lands offers a robust food and beverage program called Taste of the Bay Area curated by Tanya Kollar and composed of more than 100 vendors, including restaurants, pop-ups, food trucks, caterers and soon to debut brick and mortar businesses. There are dedicated “Lands” for wine and beer, secret menus and limited edition luxury dishes, like this year’s sweet corn Basque cheesecake served by Michelin-starred restaurant Sorrel that had a price tag of $48 (not including tip). More than 90% of the chefs and restaurateurs involved this year were women or people of color.

Although there were still many strong choices, food wasn’t in as high demand or as much of a focus the following weekend; instead, it was more about beer sales from sponsors Sierra Nevada, Budweiser, Stella Artois and Michelob. But Sorrel and its sister concept Moon returned to sell fried chicken sandwiches and fish and chips, as did Outside Lands food veterans like FOB Kitchen, a women-owned Filipino restaurant in Oakland. Local dessert company D.R.E.A.M. even renamed itself System of a Donut for the day and offered two special themed flavors called “Steal This Donut” and “SOAD.”

The merch booth at Outside Lands had healthy lines, but merch lines were on another level the following weekend. Fans in both GA and VIP sections joined queues that were almost the length of Golden Gate Park’s Polo Field for a chance to buy show-exclusive shirts, hoodies, tote bags and a commemorative poster. A posted QR code allowed fans to order the poster online to be shipped home, but no other show items were available online as of this writing.

For the first time ever, this year’s Outside Lands had a wedding chapel called City Hall, where couples could pay $361.95 for a 15-minute ceremony. This amenity wasn’t available at the concert, but one gentleman was spotted proposing to his girlfriend during Deftones’ performance.

That was just one example of the perhaps unexpected yet obvious love and affection on display at this event. Each band took time to shout out the others on the bill and express their excitement for playing there together. Deftones’ charming frontman Chino Moreno took a mid-set pause to ask the crowd to take care of each other amidst the moshing and crowd surfing. And System of a Down’s Serj Tankian told us not to be divided, because we are not each others’ enemies.

“The government is!” he said, to universal cheers.

Another Planet’s Scott said the booking ethos is to “counter-program” so as “not to cannibalize Outside Lands.”  He added that future bookings “could be country music, K-pop, heritage artists–there’s a lot of room. It’s fun booking more of a single genre on one stage because it’s a communal experience and everyone is dialed into the artist.” 

Golden Gate Park Concerts will return in 2025, perhaps with a multi-day event (DID YOU HEAR THAT?)