After a great showing for Outside Lands 2022, the festival is again set to take over Golden Gate Park from August 11-13. Outside Lands 2023 will mark the 15th anniversary of the festival, with a stacked lineup of performers as well as stellar food and drink offerings.

The festival is one of the biggest in the United States and not only brings some of the world’s best musical acts to the Bay Area, but also offers festivalgoers the opportunity to experience some of the area’s best restaurants, breweries and wineries all in one place. Outside Lands lists a total of 96 local restaurants in attendance this year, with over 700 different menu items. The Outside Lands Marketplace will also be back, showcasing art and more from local creators.

Keep reading for everything to know about Outside Lands 2023, including specifics on tickets, big-name musical acts performing, the menu and roster of events taking place over the three-day festival. 

Outside Lands is held at Golden Gate Park, with entrances and exits located near 30th Avenue and Middle Drive and Metson Road. As with any big event in the city, we recommend taking public transportation to the festival, rather than driving your car. Parking is sparse in the area surrounding the park, so, if you do drive you’re likely to spend a ton of time looking for a space and even more time navigating traffic once the festival wraps for the night.

Ride-hailing services can be handy for getting to the festival but be prepared to pay surge pricing and potentially wait a bit after the night wraps to secure a ride. There’s also free bike parking at Outside Lands, so if you have a bike it might be a good time to ride.

The Outside Lands lineup has been revealed, but we’re still waiting for the detailed hourly schedule to be released. That means while you can go ahead and plan what days you want to go to the festival, you won’t be able to build a detailed hourly itinerary just yet.

The headliners will be Kendrick Lamar on Friday, Foo Fighters on Saturday and Odesza on Sunday, with the festival spotlighting a different genre each night.

Other big-name performers slated for Friday include Zedd, Janelle Monae, Interpol, Willow and Diesel (the DJ moniker of Shaquille O’Neal). Saturday will see Lana Del Rey, Maggie Rogers, Father John Misty, Alvvays and Trixie Mattel take the stage, among many others. Finally, Sunday’s other stars include Megan Thee Stallion, The 1975, Lil Yachty and Beabadoobee.

If electronic music is your life, the SOMA tent will be in Marx Meadow and will offer non-stop house and techno music all weekend. Performers there this year include Clayton, Con & Breezy, Denix Sulta and Disco Lines, among many others. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. will be hosting the Little Things Lounge, located across from the Panhandle Stage, where DJ Starfari will be performing between Panhandle sets each afternoon.

Tickets for Outside Lands are currently available as single-day purchases, with nearly all three-day passes being sold out as of publication. Single-day general admission (GA) tickets are listed at $199 a day before fees and a new ticket for 2023, GA+, sells for $299 for a single day before fees and includes access to expedited entry and a lounge with complimentary soft drinks, flushing toilets and a dedicated bar with food for purchase.

VIP passes are also only available on a single-day basis, listed at $499 before fees. VIP ticket holders get access to dedicated entrances into the park, special viewing areas at several of the stages and access to a courtyard with special food and drink vendors and restrooms.

The only three-day passes still available as of this writing are in the ritzy Golden Gate Club tier, which sell for $2,199 for a single day and $4,899 for the whole weekend. Those passes come with a dedicated entrance, front-of-stage viewing, travel to and from stages in golf carts and private lounges with complimentary all-day food from Bay Area chefs such as Tyler Florence and Liholiho Yacht Club’s Ravi Kapur.

If you’ve been to Outside Lands in the past, you know that the festival is worth attending for the food alone. We already know most of the restaurants that will be on site this year, as well as what they’ll be serving, so you can start planning your weekend menu now. The festival’s organizers say nearly 90% of this year’s food lineup comes from minority- and female-owned businesses, including El Huarache Loco and Sabores del Sur, both of which have been at the festival for each of its 15 years.

One highlight of the 2023 food offerings is The La Cocina Taco Tour. The booth will include three spots — Alma y Sazon, Bocadito Colombian Snackeria and Clandestina Cocina — which will be offering plates that showcase three different cultural interpretations of the taco. Shuggie’s Trash Pie + Natural Wine will also be at the festival serving Trashy Pizzas (their words, not ours) and highlighting upcycled produce, offcuts and byproducts, and Michelin-starred Sorrel and Michelin-rated Horn Barbecue will also be in attendance. 

For those looking for something sweet, Johnny Doughnuts will be serving doughnuts and doughnut sundaes; Humphry Slocombe will be serving scoops and floats; and Charles Chocolates will have gourmet s’mores, frozen hot chocolate and more.

Alcoholic drinks will come in a wide variety of choices at Outside Lands 2023, with themed areas appealing to whatever your poison may be. Cocktail Magic is swapping spots with Wine Lands this year. Cocktail Magic will be located in Lindley Meadow, across from the Sutra Stage, and Wine Lands will be in McLaren Pass between the Lands End and Twin Peaks stages. Beer Lands is once again holding down the back of Polo Field.

Cocktail Magic is also doubling in size this year and will house six specialty cocktail bars, including James Beard Foundation Award-nominee Trick Dog as well as Oakland’s Kon-Tiki, which will both be offering food-and-drink pairings for the first time. 

Wine Lands will be pouring wine from 25 different wineries and will also have a bar dedicated specifically to sparkling wines. VIP ticket holders will also be able to experience Wine Lands Reserve within the VIP area, which will have an additional 10 wineries. Altogether, Outside Lands says there will be over 100 different wines available, with a focus on California wines including Charles Krug, Aperture Cellars and Roederer Estate.

Meanwhile, in Beer Lands, 30 California breweries and cideries will be pouring this year, including old favorites such as Moonlight Brewing Company and 21st Amendment. Grass Valley’s BrewBilt will be debuting at Outside Lands before its beer becomes available throughout the Bay Area, and HenHouse will be pouring a new collaborative beer it’s made just for Outside Lands in conjunction with California’s Admiral Maltings. White Claw will also be sold throughout the festival grounds.

For those looking for low- or no-alcohol options, Cocktail Magic will host a Less is More tent with low-ABV cocktails. Wine Lands will also include the Zero Roof a national importer and merchant of non-alcoholic wines and Heineken’s alcohol-free beer, Heineken 0.0, will be available across the festival grounds.

If you’re planning to hit the festival all day, perhaps the most important thing to bring with you is layers. While Golden Gate Park could be warm during the day, depending on the influence of Karl’s notorious fog, once the sun sets you’re probably going to want a jacket. You’re also definitely going to be standing and walking around a lot, so you’ll want to make sure you’re wearing comfortable shoes, preferably water-resistant ones for when the ground gets soggy as the fog rolls in.

Bags are limited to 6″ x 8″ x 3″, unless they’re clear. The Outside Lands bag policy also allows you to bring an empty hydration pack with a bladder capacity of 2½ liters or less that you can fill inside the park.

Be sure to check out the full list of what’s allowed and what’s not on the Outside Lands website before you go. The festival prohibits glass or cans of any kind, weapons, hammocks or slack lines, fireworks, skateboards, video or audio recording equipment, coolers, picnic baskets and lawn furniture, just to name a few.

This story was edited by Hearst Newspapers Managing Editor Kristina Moy; you can contact her at [email protected].