Dead & Co., Zach Bryan & Outside Lands: How Another Planet & San Fran Parks & Rec Make ‘Unforgettable Experiences’ Golden Gate Park

For the second year, Another Planet Entertainment is expanding its footprint in Golden Gate Park with extra weekends of shows surrounding their annual festival, Outside Lands, set for Aug. 8-10. This year, Dead & Company will mark 60 years of the Grateful Dead with three nights in the park the weekend before the festival on Aug. 1-3, while Zach Bryan will take the stage the weekend after on Aug. 15.

Dead & Company returning to Golden Gate Park is poetic for the city, as Golden Gate Park’s live music pedigree began with the band performing there back in 1967, along with Jefferson Airplane at the Human Be-In. 

“The Dead & Company shows I’ve been working on for over two years to make happen,” Another Planet Entertainment’s Allen Scott tells Pollstar. “They wanted to do Sphere first. I’m just excited that it happened. It was quite a process to get done, a very complex web of people and agendas and interests. Those are going to be special shows, we’ve got big name artists opening up with Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson and Trey Anastasio Band. And expect known and surprise guests to be coming in and sitting in with the band.

“They’re really investing in this show to make it as special as it can be. They understand they were doing something revolutionary and unique with the Sphere, and they want to continue to build upon that creativity. They want an experience that’s still something people will talk about for years to come.”

The shows will also generate more economic impact for the city, with many fans traveling from all across the country and spending time at hotels, restaurants, shops and more.

“We’re so thrilled Dead and Company have chosen to host their 60th anniversary event in the park for all kinds of reasons, but that alone will generate about $30 million in local economic impact,” Phil Ginsburg, General Manager of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, says.

The promotion company works closely with the city and San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Department to ensure its own impact is minimized. Scott notes Another Planet has minimized its footprint in Golden Gate Park so that they’re only taking up space three weeks total, moving quickly on build up and tear down so that locals can enjoy the park to its fullest extent. For the shows with Dead & Company and Zach Bryan, they contract the site to only encompass Polo Fields (with Scott noting for the Dead & Co. shows, they might bring in Grass Lands, as it seems fitting for the crowd). For the city, that makes them ideal partners to work with.

“Another Planet Entertainment has earned our respect in two fundamental ways,” Ginsburg says. “First, they care deeply about Golden Gate Park. Golden Gate Park isn’t just a park, it’s one of the most iconic public land spaces in America, and they work very closely with my staff. They’re very respectful of the park and its infrastructure. They really do listen, and I think it is in their ethos to want to leave the park better than they found it each and every year. The other reason the relationship works as well as it does is because they really do understand the importance of community engagement. They know that this is a very dense city and that events of the magnitude like Outside Lands or Dead & Company do have an impact. It’s unavoidable on the neighborhoods surrounding the park. While I think it’s important to absorb the idea that great cities do great things, we do this knowing there’s going to be a little bit of impact, but they lean into it and take it very seriously to mitigate that impact as best they can. They invest in a community pot in the two neighborhoods adjacent to the park for improvements that the community wants to make. They bring in local restauranteurs and local musicians. Festivals like this obviously create a lot of local hiring, but they are very sensitive to their footprint.”

Another Planet Entertainment is marking its 17th year of Outside Lands, and the second year of its Golden Gate Park series. The expanded weekends were first conceived prior to the pandemic, but post-COVID, former mayor London Breed approached the promotion company and asked about expanding Outside Lands to two weekends. Scott admitted that they likely wouldn’t garner enough ticket sales to pull something like that off, but suggested hosting one-off concerts on the festival’s surrounding weekends.

Ahead of the pandemic, San Francisco was on a massive upswing. The area was booming with tech companies moving in, but the city was becoming increasingly expensive, and, once COVID hit, many fled to buy homes elsewhere as they moved to remote work. The city itself was one of the first to be impacted by the pandemic, and one of the last ones to open up after restrictions lifted. The city and Another Planet Entertainment started teaming up to reinvigorate downtown, with free shows at Embarcadero (teaming up with house music record label Dirty Bird), a pop-up concert in front of City Hall with Skrillex and Fred again.., and the expanded weekends at Golden Gate Park.

Last year marked the first time Another Planet Entertainment expanded its footprint on Polo Fields for another weekend, bringing in System of a Down and Deftones to perform on Aug. 17. The show brought a new crowd to the park, many fans coming in without having attended Outside Lands the weekend before.

For these upcoming shows, Scott feels there may be some overlap between two of the weekends, but minimal overlap between all three. With each event, the park will be transformed to varying themes for the performers and crowds, the first weekend highlighting Dead & Company and the Grateful Dead’s history, the second bringing to life the comforts of Outside Lands, and the third catered to Bryan and his fans.

“I think the most important thing here is just what a big deal this is for San Francisco, these three weekends,” Scott says. “It’s never seen anything like this before. It’s something unifying the city. It’s something that people are already talking about and will be all of August.”

Scott expects the tickets sold through those three weekends at Golden Gate Park will beat out any other venue in the Bay Area. For Ginsburg, there’s no surprise there.

“These aren’t just concerts,” he says. “This is San Francisco doing what it does best, which is celebrating culture, facilitating and respecting community, and making public spaces something unforgettable.”