Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Headline San Francisco Festival

Mitchell Peters, L.A.
The U.S. festival frenzy continues with today's (March 3) announcement that Radiohead, Tom Petty and Jack Johnson will headline San Francisco's inaugural Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival, to be held Aug. 22-24 at Golden Gate Park.

"This has been a project we've been working on for almost three years," Superfly Productions president Jonathan Mayers tells Billboard.com. "We're going to produce something special here -- something that maybe the Bay Area hasn't seen before."

Additional acts for Outside Lands will be announced in the coming weeks, says Mayers, who promises a "strong and diverse" lineup of such musical genres as rock, blues, reggae, jazz, hip-hop, world, soul, Latin and electronic. The festival, which will boast five main performance stages, will also feature a number of local Bay Area artists.

The event is being produced by Superfly Productions, Another Planet Entertainment and Star Hill Presents, in cooperation with the San Francisco Recreation & Park Department. Mayers, whose company produces the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in conjunction with A.C.

Entertainment, says Outside Lands tickets will go on sale around the end of March."We are starting with a three-day ticket and depending on availability we're going to do single-day tickets," he explains. "We're still finalizing the exact price, but we're going to offer an initial discounted ticket to people."

A portion of every ticket sold will benefit Golden Gate Park, which has hosted a number of concerts over the years, including the Tibetan Freedom Concert, Peter Gabriel's WOMAD Festival and the Guinness Fleadh Festival.

The 1,000-plus acre park has also seen performances from such artists as Pearl Jam, Neil Young and Dave Matthews.Noting that concerts are nothing new for Golden Gate Park, Mayers says Outside Lands will be the first music event there to run past 6 p.m. "We're going until the 10 o1clock curfew on Friday and Saturday," he says.

"It's a little bit earlier on Sunday. That alone will be special."Outside Lands will arrive approximately one month prior to San Francisco's Treasure Island Music Festival (Sept. 20-21) and several months ahead of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival (April 25-27) in Indio, Calif. Despite the competition in California, not to mention other large-scale festivals throughout North America, Mayers is confident that Outside Lands will draw about 60,000 nationwide concertgoers per day.

"While we stay aware of what's out there, I think our philosophy is to stay focused on what we're doing and just make it the best event it can be," he explains. "I'm confident it will go great. And I'm sure the other events will do great as well -- there's certainly room.

"Mayers adds that the combined knowledge and experience of Superfly Productions (which also produces the Vegoose event in Las Vegas) and Bay Area-based Another Planet Entertainment will prove beneficial to festival-goers. "[Another Planet] is doing great shows and have a lot of experience on the local level," Mayers observes. "We bring the expertise on the festival level.

It's about creating more than just a normal concert. We're really trying to build an annual tradition in San Francisco -- something that really integrates into the community."