My Weekend At Outside Lands 2026
Outside Lands has become one of those weekends I look forward to every time I can make it back to Golden Gate Park. This year marked my third time attending the festival, but my first time covering it as media for ListenSD, which made the entire experience feel completely different. I’m beyond grateful to both ListenSD and Outside Lands for giving me the opportunity to photograph and cover a festival I already loved.
Friday started with Chezile, then I caught part of Die Spitz before heading over for Geese and Turnstile. Thankfully, Geese and Turnstile were on the same stage, which gave me at least one stretch of the day where I wasn’t racing across the park with camera gear. Somewhere during those sets, though, I made what turned out to be a pretty expensive mistake. I had put my glasses in my pocket before entering the mosh pit, and by the time I made it back out to my girlfriend, they were completely gone.
Somehow, I still managed to finish out the night shooting Charli XCX. Saturday morning then started with an unexpected detour to replace my glasses, roughly $300 later, before heading straight back into the festival. Not exactly how I planned to begin day two, but it all worked out.
Saturday kicked off with Racing Mount Pleasant, a set I had been especially excited for. I’ve been a fan for a long time, and after their performance, I was lucky enough to meet them briefly face to face. It was a small moment in an incredibly busy weekend, but easily one of my personal highlights.
From there, the day continued with Audrey Hobert, Malcolm Todd, and Dijon before we slowed things down a little to explore more of the festival grounds. We checked out some booths, grabbed food, and eventually made our way to Trixie Mattel’s DJ set before finishing the night with PinkPantheress. One of my favorite things about Outside Lands is that so much is happening outside the actual performances that taking a little time to wander around never feels wasted.
By Sunday, the tired legs had definitely arrived, but there was still a full day ahead. We started with Sports, followed by Balu Brigada, before heading to Empire of the Sun. From there, I caught part of Frost Children’s live set before ending my festival weekend with Baby Keem.
Covering Outside Lands for the first time gave me an entirely new appreciation for just how much happens over three days. I went into Friday excited to photograph some of my favorite artists and left Sunday exhausted, with thousands of photos, a new pair of glasses, a ridiculous number of steps on my phone, and more stories than I could have planned for.
That’s part of what makes Outside Lands so much fun. Your favorite moments aren’t always the ones you circle on the lineup beforehand. Sometimes it’s finally meeting a band you’ve listened to for years. Sometimes it’s stumbling across something while exploring Golden Gate Park. Sometimes it’s standing in a photo pit shooting an artist you never imagined you’d get the opportunity to cover.
And sometimes it’s losing your glasses at Turnstile and spending $300 the next morning so you can actually see the rest of the festival.
Three Outside Lands weekends in, this one is going to be pretty hard to top.
