The weather held up all weekend long and didn’t present any huge problems, either. I vote that it takes place that weekend every year, but I say that without knowing how easily the tickets moved for this weekend versus when it happens in August, and what issues arose as a result of it happening in October and not earlier. Outside Lands did a great job with their pivot to Halloween weekend by including spooky stuff in their merch, signs, and overall feel and look. People dress up at music festivals in general, but this made it so a lot of people who maybe wouldn’t have taken that initiative on any other weekend got into the spirit. Though Halloween was the Sunday of the festival, people were in the dress-up spirit all weekend long. It goes head-to-head with fewer music festivals than its usual August dates (which I think run contrary to quite a few) and it presents some awesome branding opportunities in the form of one of the favorite holidays of most people. To me, this past weekend was a sign that Outside Lands should permanently make the move to Halloween weekend.
Here’s what I found to be the best and worst of this year’s festival. I didn’t realize how much it helped my mental health to be able to see live music, especially at festivals. As someone who attended festivals regularly, it was a huge blow for me personally to not have that outlet. This was my first three-day music festival since the pandemic shut down the live music industry for more than a year. I flew into the Bay Area early Friday morning, dropped my bags off at a nearby hotel, and went straight in. For the first - and perhaps only time, the festival took place across Halloween weekend. The pandemic stalled a streak of having attended the festival four years in a row, and it was definitely something I missed badly. Nine years later, it was nice to be back at Golden Gate Park for Outside Lands 2021. I didn’t care, it was freeing in a way, and I just bopped around the festival and met a ton of cool people and bumped into a lot of friends having grown up 30 minutes from San Francisco in the East Bay. I was broker than all hell, and midway through the first day my phone ran out of minutes (remember that was a thing?). I won tickets to the festival that year by getting the most likes on a Facebook post. The very first music festival I ever attended was Outside Lands 2012.
0 kommentar(er)
