San Francisco’s longest-running free music festival will return this summer with a lineup that spans generations and genres, from legends like Al Green and Patti LaBelle to indie darling Japanese Breakfast and party starters Major Lazer.
The Stern Grove Festival revealed the lineup for its 89th season, which will run from June 14 through Aug. 16 at Sigmund Stern Grove, on Tuesday, April 7. Other highlights includes hip-hop pioneers Public Enemy, punk stalwarts Violent Femmes and Indian genre-blending act Peter Cat Recording Co.
But with Tune-Yards and Goapele also among those on the bill, more than half of the performers are from the Bay Area, reflecting a renewed focus on local artists.
The series at the city’s historic outdoor amphitheater is expected to draw more than 100,000 people over nine weeks.
“At a time when concert tickets are skyrocketing and festivals are disappearing, Stern Grove Festival continues to do something increasingly rare: bringing tens of thousands of people together for free,” organizers said in a statement.
Weekly Sunday concerts will once again fill the tree-lined grove, a tradition that dates back to 1938, when Rosalie Meyer Stern founded the festival with a simple premise that live music should be accessible to everyone.
That mission still guides the nonprofit today.
“In our 89th season, we’re reminded that music has a unique ability to lift us, heal us, and bring us together,” Bob Fiedler, executive director of Stern Grove Festival, said in a statement. “Stern Grove is a place where that joy is shared across generations — where thousands of people can come together and feel something bigger than themselves.”
The season will culminate with the festival’s Big Picnic Weekend, a two-day fundraising finale featuring Public Enemy on Aug. 15 and a closing performance by Green, joined by Goapele and the GLIDE Ensemble, on Aug. 16.
The festival is now overseen in part by descendants of its founder, including board chairman Matthew Goldman.
“As a fifth-generation family steward of Stern Grove Festival, I am deeply proud of how this organization has evolved over nearly 90 years into a truly unique place where music, community, and nature come together — free and open to all,” Goldman said in a statement.
Admission is free, but tickets are distributed through a lottery system for each show via the festival’s website.