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Outside Lands 2026 Opens With Guitar-Forward Sets and Massive Mosh Pits

The city’s expanded transit plan is being tested by the sold-out festival.

Overview

  • Outside Lands opened Friday as a sold-out, three-day festival in Golden Gate Park that draws roughly 75,000 attendees per day.
  • Friday’s programming skewed toward guitar-driven rock, with Turnstile’s Sutro-stage set producing one of the largest mosh pits in the festival’s recent memory.
  • Outside Lands is offering a free, selective eight-hour Amazon Music livestream each day but the stream does not include Sunday headliner Rüfüs Du Sol.
  • San Francisco deployed extra transit measures to ease access, including SFMTA shuttles, added Muni guidance, designated rideshare drop-off zones and limits on Waymo pickups while urging attendees not to drive.
  • An intense online conversation about teenage attendees and crowd behavior has emerged after Day 1, raising questions about age policies and how the festival experience will be managed for different groups.