Editor’s Note: This story was part of “Outside Outside Lands” — our independent coverage of the Bay Area’s biggest, most expensive music festival of 2024. Tickets were expensive, and they wouldn’t give us press passes, so we decided to cover the event from outside the fences.
Sneaking into a concert is the stuff of urban legend — usually the kind you hear people recall in documentaries and barroom stories that make you wish you were living that misanthropic, high-octane lifestyle.
“I snuck in [to Outside Lands] a couple of times. That was pretty feasible in the past,” Henry, an avid-showgoer, told us. He declined to give his last name, but he lives just down the street from Golden Gate Park, where the festival is being held.
Back in the early days of Outside Lands, Henry said people snuck in one of two ways. Most would go the sneaky route – jump a fence on the perimeter and kind of crawl around in the woods until they could find an entry point.
The other option was to “storm the gates.” You and 30 of your closest friends rushed the prison-grey security barricades, powered by broke adrenaline and idealistic bravado.
“The first guy leading the charge is going to get tackled. But they’re kind of like the diversion,” Henry said. “Then everyone else can sneak by and run in.”
After overwhelming security with sheer numbers, you could duck security by blending in with the crowd. After all, they weren’t looking for you anymore.
“Pick up a wristband off the ground, and you’re good,” he explained.
But sneaking in ain’t what it used to be. At Outside Lands 2024, the security was heavy-duty. The fences were higher, and there were more people posted up to deter would-be heroics. Security guards were behind nearly every fence, speaking on walkie-talkies and patrolling on golf carts.
“Nowadays, they have 30 guys waiting to tackle you at the gates,” the veteran festival-head said.
For others, it was never about the music. Sneaking in is the fun part.
Giovanni Acedo, a 34-year-old EDM concert fanatic who lives nearby, said he saw a group of people actively trying on the last day of the festival. He thought about joining them just for the thrill of it, but he was too tired from going out twice that weekend already. However, he did note that several chain fences around the perimeter had the telltale bends in them from sneakered fugitives hopping the walls.
“It’s kind of fun just to sneak in, I think. That’s more fun than the show,” Acedo said.
As the price of live music soars beyond the reach of consumers, some overzealous fans are taking matters into their own hands, sometimes running into the law along the way. In early 2024, a Chinese influencer and his friend were arrested for sneaking into a sold-out Taylor Swift show in Singapore, as well as for helping three others jump the concert turnstile.
In San Francisco, the heightened security was already inspiring a psychological deterrent on the crowds.
While we were taking pictures, some passersby mentioned a rumor that security was running a thin, electrical current through some of the fences. That way, they could detect when someone was hopping the fence and respond within seconds.
Now, that sounds like festival-myth bullshit for a couple of reasons. What if I was leaning on the fence? Are they going to call a goddamn bomb squad every time I get kind of tired from waiting in line? Also, don’t get me wrong—I’m sure San Francisco has the tech for that, but I don’t know that they have the money. Plus, the PR disaster alone from “Outside Lands uses electrified fences to keep people out” would probably preclude its use.
But what wasn’t bullshit were the K9 units around the southwest side of the festival perimeter, where staff and (I assume) performers entered. Cars with tinted windows passed through every few minutes and officers from the San Francisco Police Department routinely walked the hounds around each one before they could move on.
Oh yeah, did I mention the SFPD was there? Y’know, the guys carrying guns?
Sneaking into a concert is technically criminal trespassing. It’s a misdemeanor punishable by up to $1,000 in fines and six months in county jail. If you’re caught, you’re at the mercy of whatever security catches you. Usually, they’ll just kick you out, but it’s quite the risk to take.
It depends on who’s running security too.
“My job is to observe and report,” said a security guard behind the fence, who went by G. “That is the extent of my job.”
Understandably, he didn’t want to use his full name during our interview.
“I appreciate what you guys are doing, but I’m new at the company, and I’m not tryin’ to make waves,” he told us.
He said he likely wouldn’t pursue any fence-hoppers himself but mentioned that someone else would. He had other people to call for that.
What we know of the modern sneaking-into-concerts scene is mostly through arrest records and social media.
In 2022, one Nebraska teen was let go by security three times trying to sneak backstage at a Rod Wave concert until they called the cops. In the end, the worst charge the kid got wasn’t for sneaking in— it was for punching a cop while resisting arrest.
You’re not safe after you go home, either. A New Jersey teen was arrested after he snuck into Delaware’s Firefly Music Festival without a ticket and then posted a “how-to” video about it on YouTube. Unsurprisingly, the cops saw the video and issued an arrest warrant. He also caught a minor theft charge for not paying the $200 ticket.
Bottom line: if you get caught sneaking into a show, you’re rolling the dice. If you’re under 18, your parents are definitely getting involved.
Knowing all this, you’d have to be pretty stupid to try and sneak into one of the most heavily guarded music festivals in the country.
Or, maybe, just in love.
“Our girlfriends are inside,” 17-year-old Josh Smith told us. He’s a local high schooler who showed up to Outside Lands with his friend Steve Martin, also 17, to poke around the festival’s fences for gaps in its armor.
We spotted Smith and Martin skulking about outside the festival and whispering to one another, so we approached them for an interview. The pair was apprehensive at first but later opened up once they realized we weren’t going to narc on them.
The duo spoke to SpeakerHead on condition of anonymity, so these aren’t their real names. Again, it’s kind of a crime.
In their normal lives, the teens are buttoned down. Decent grades. Student-athletes. But all their friends were going to Outside Lands this year, and they just didn’t have the money.
Their girlfriends offered to pay for them, but tickets were already going for $350 (each) on resale by that time. Their pride wouldn’t let them.
For these two, it’s not about the artists. It’s about the community.
“It’s about the friends and the girlfriends, and being able to jump up and down, and make better connections and do all this stuff. That’s what we’re really here for. The artists just amplify the experience,” Martin said.
He also said the usual price tag of Outside Lands wouldn’t be worth it for them.
“I mean, for me, it’s like a mosh pit and you’re paying $350 for that. It’s crazy” Martin said.
Depending on where you are, the chain-link walls around Outside Lands are two, sometimes three fences deep. The teenage duo planned to jump the fences at the points where they were closest together, minimizing the time they were in a restricted area. After that, they planned to bribe a security guard to look the other way, then blend in with the crowd.
“I got $20,” he laughed. “$20 and a dream.”
Anecdotal evidence suggests sneaking into concerts happened a lot less in the early live music scene, but ticket prices back then were also way different. I’ve listed a few below in 2024 dollars so you can get the idea.
In 1966, a ticket to see the Beatles’ final concert would have cost $53. In 1984, the average Michael Jackson concert was a modern $85. In 2002, Eminem sold his tickets for the equivalent of $59. Prices started rising in 2013 when Kanye’s Yeezus tour tickets averaged out to a modern $108. In 2023, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour shattered records with an average ticket price of $253.
Recently, these prices have started to heinously outpace inflation. According to Pollstar, a trade publication for live music the average concert ticket in 2019 was $91.86. By 2024, it was $123.25—a 34.3% increase in just four years—which far exceeds the predicted inflation rate of 11.87%.
And when the rules get unfair, people stop playing.
“We’re broke as fuck,” Matt, 17, told us in an interview. Again, not his real name. He and his friend “Jonathan,” also 17, are also sneaking in this year. The two attend high school in the city.
I’m not sure how much demographics play a part in sneaking into shows, but everyone we interviewed turned out to be a young male student-athlete confident in their ability to outrun the cops.
Matt and Jonathan are two young Latin-American youths, and poorer than the last guys we interviewed. They’ve known each other since they were little, and they work part-time jobs to cover the life expenses their parents can’t or won’t. Gas, which just rose to $4.78 in the city, gives their budget particular strain.
For being born poor, their penance is an eight-hour day shift every weekday in the summer, and on weekends when school is in session.
When it comes to Outside lands, they’ve got other expenses that take priority. And they’re candid about it.
“We just don’t think it’s worth it, and we want the experience without all the money,” Jonathan told us. He’s a teen who knows the value of each dollar he works for, referring to the festival multiple times as an “investment.”
The teens said it was a matter of city pride too, moaning that locals were being “priced out” of attending a concert hosted in a public park, owned by the city, to the benefit of wealthy outsiders and carpetbagging corporations who don’t care about San Francisco.
“A lot of the people here, we feel, are spoiled by their parents. They just get to come in and get their tickets paid for. We work for our money, pay for our gas, everything like that,” Matt said.
The boys hit on something interesting here.
Tickets to Outside Lands were $199 for a one-day GA pass (not including ticket fees). And that’s the cheapest option for what might be the most expensive festival in the nation.
Next weekend, Another Planet Entertainment (APE), which runs Outside Lands, is hosting another companion event in Golden Gate Park where “90%” of the 65,000 attendees will come from outside San Francisco, said Allen Scott, President of Concerts and Festivals at APE, during an interview with independent SF newspaper 48 Hills.
APE really sells the whole “city pride” angle to its customers. Outside Lands has the “best food” in the city. The “best drinks” in the city. The “best weed” in the city.
So, what does it say when average residents can’t afford to attend?
While their ambitions were purer, the class-conscious philosophers also had a simpler strategy than the previous two guys we interviewed.
“We’ll just kind of go for it, I guess,” shrugs Matt. His partner-in-crime nods.
“Jump and run,” Jonathan agrees.
Suddenly, a friend called them over to the bushes, and it was time to go.
I thanked them for the interview and watched as another teenager, maybe an older brother, dapped them up behind a dense thicket. These two would-be revolutionaries walked into the trees chasing a rumor. They recently heard about a spot down the perimeter where others had some luck that weekend.
They walked into the bushes and vines, along the fences, until I couldn’t see them anymore. I turned my recorder off. I will never know if any of these guys ever got into the biggest festival of the year.
The bohemian dream of sneaking into a festival may never again be a pillar of counterculture music scenes. But not everyone minds that.
“With like violence at events and stuff like that, like shootings, it’s probably a bit more of a serious issue if someone’s just trying to force their way in,” Henry told us.
And for the veteran showgoer, they were a time and a place anyway.
“I think my days of big multi-day festivals are kind of behind me. I’d much rather see an artist I like at like a smaller venue,” he concluded.
But seeing the kids disappear, ready to risk everything, and bearing that responsibility on their shoulders like a rare sin of youth, I was overcome with a mix of anxiety for their future and a cosmic comfort for their reckless idealism.
The kids are alright. They’re just broke.
