Dear Editor:
“The resolution (approved by the Budget and Appropriations Committee in June) authorizes the department to issue a permit allowing Another Planet Entertainment, LLC (APE) to hold concerts at the polo field “on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday either following or preceding the Outside Lands Festivals … in exchange for a minimum permit fee of $1,530,000 per year for two-day events and $2,295,000 per year for three-day events through 2029, with options to extend the permit until 2035.” (Another Planet Entertainment Contract Extension Before Board of Supes, by Thomas K. Pendergast, Richmond Review, 7/8/26)
The contracts proposed, between the San Francisco Recreation and Park Dept. and APE fall short of the industry standard. The APE contracts are not typical for a venue this size, potentially costing the City millions of dollars in lost revenue.
How much money is APE making on the newly proposed post/pre Outside Lands (OSL) concerts? Not to mention OSL itself. APE won’t share that information. The City is not getting a share of the profits, so we don’t know.
Tickets to OSL cost a minimum of $200 a day, with premium tickets going for $1,000 or more. Assuming the same prices and level of attendance for the proposed concerts (sold out) and 1,000 premium tickets sold each day out of the 65,000 tickets: 1,000 tickets x $1,000 = $1,000,0000. 64,000 tickets x $200 = $12,800,000. That’s $13,800,000 per day. For two days, that’s $27,600,000.
APE is offering the City $1.53 million for two days: that is not a good deal. Why haven’t the terms of this ready-made APE contact been questioned? When the post-Outside Lands concert was first being voted on by the SF Rec and Parks Commission, Jenny Sue, a local resident, called in to comment on the proposed post-Outside Lands contract terms, “Currently Golden Gate Park plans to charge Another Planet a fixed permit fee… However when you take a look at local arenas like Oracle Arena, Chase Center, and SAP Center, ShoreLine Amphitheater and Concord Pavilion, they typically employ a percentage based revenue sharing model ranging from 15 to 20 percent of ticket sales.”
Supervisors, please don’t approve this giveaway contract.
David Romano
San Francisco CA 94121
Categories: letter to the editor
Yet another event creating massive traffic problems for the Richmond , Sunset districts And the rest of the city . Help I’m trapped in an amusement park and I can’t get out !
Another great letter from David Romano!
40% of net would be fair. But this atrocity does not belong in the park! The humongous concrete boomerang in the Polo Field alone tells us that!
Unfortunately, the vote is today, and the elite-serving YIMBY majority will surely rubber stamp this heinous contract.
Regarding how the City of San Francisco does business:
I’ve personally heard about a local business — one of the original exhibitors at Outside Lands — being told that they could no longer have their own booth and could only share a booth with another exhibitor, thereby cutting their profits in half. Mind you, this is a business that has done more to anchor the Sunset District in the past 20 years — *plus build San Francisco’s identity across all ages and demographics — than any big-business organization in this city, including SF Travel.
Another local employee has told me that their business submits highly detailed itemized reports to San Francisco Rec & Park while other organizations submit the barest of details and get awarded huge contracts. And Captain Maggie Hallahan is about to speak to the Coalition For San Francisco Neighborhoods on July 21 about Rec & Park’s plan to permanently close the Gashouse Cove fuel and landing dock at the Fort Mason marina, and turn it into a kayaking and paddleboarding “park” to complement the proposed Marina Safeway condos.
The problem is, that fuel dock is crucial to everyone from the Coast Guard and the SFPD to every boater on the Bay—not to mention the fact that the pipeline under Laguna Street dumps raw sewage into the Fort Mason marina four times a year. But Rec & Park’s ‘plan’ mentions none of this.
Hallahan’s report also says that under Rec & Park, what was originally supposed to be a $40 million cleanup has ballooned into a $220 million project, with $180 million that can’t be accounted for.
When do we get to file a taxpayer lawsuit against the City of San Francisco and San Francisco Recreation & Parks, for gross negligence and civic fraud?
Captain Hallahan’s report:
https://mhpv.net/gashouse-cove-east-harbor-sf-marina
Coalition For San Francisco Neighborhoods’ next Zoom meeting:
https://csfn.net