In 2008, Gregg W. Perloff, a longtime Bay Area music promoter who came up under bare-knuckled ’60s rock impresario Bill Graham, was five years into leading his own promo company when he staged an event that no multinational competitor had dared attempt in San Francisco: a three-night, 60-act music festival, headlined by Tom Petty and Radiohead, with arena-rock sound levels blaring through Golden Gate Park until 10 p.m. Perloff’s Another Planet Entertainment (APE), along with coproducers Superfly, overcame countless logistical and political hurdles on the way to staging the inaugural Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival, which ultimately brought around 120,000 music fans to the City by the Bay.
That festival established APE as a sort of Chez Panisse of live music—an independent Bay Area producer of a quality experience at every level. The company has since helped cultivate the development of artists such as Billie Eilish and Lizzo, booking them as up-and-coming acts at smaller clubs (say, The Independent in SF) and then at progressively larger venues (Berkeley’s Greek Theatre or Oakland’s Fox Theater) until they’re superstars. Outside Lands celebrates its 15th anniversary this month—featuring Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters, Janelle Monáe, and more than 70 other performers—and APE is continuing to grow, having opened a 1,600-capacity venue, The Bellwether, in Downtown Los Angeles last month. Here, Perloff discusses the benefits of being independent, how his events company survived COVID, and the best shows he has seen.
On independence:
“When we started Another Planet with five people, everyone said, ‘You can’t do that. Where’s your money from? How will you ever get to scale?’ And we just said, ‘Well, we think we understand the market better than anyone,’ and we valued [the Bay Area] as our home. Once we secured the essentials to survive—controlling certain venues, finding cash flow—we could pursue our other commitments, like giving back to the community and featuring a certain percentage of local artists. We started small, didn’t need to raise a gazillion dollars, and today Outside Lands generates over $70 million annually for the local economy, and close to $1 billion since its inception. I think [that success] comes from knowing you’re dealing with human beings, not widgets. You don’t always need to make 15 percent more profit than last year. It’s served me very well to be a human being, which means understanding that you don’t go for the short dollar, you play the long game, and you have a conscience about what you do.”
On finding your passion:
“I always say that the one thing an artist doesn’t get to enjoy at their concert is seeing the joy in people who came to see them. They greet the crowd, play their set, then head to the dressing room. I’m the one who gets to stand in the front of the building and watch everyone coming out, saying ‘Oh my God, that was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.’ To me, that’s the greatest thing you can see: people leaving smiling and feeling warm, excited, and safe after one of my shows.”
On memorable shows:
“[I saw] Bob Marley at the Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley in 1978. Marley did his show, went back for an encore, then headed down to his dressing room, and the audience didn’t move. They simply wouldn’t leave. They were applauding for 10, 15, 20 minutes. Marley realized what was going on and came back to do several more songs. The intensity of that devotion was something I’d never seen before. About 40 years later, we presented Radiohead’s Thom Yorke at the Fox Theater [in Oakland], and the same thing happened. The audience would not leave. In my career, this has only happened twice, and they were the most exciting yet anxiety-producing moments, since you’re worried about what might happen.”
On riding out the bumps:
“The pandemic changed everything for us, and I’m very proud that we were one of the very few companies to keep 100 percent of our employees on 100 percent salary. We didn’t want to have to rebuild the whole company, and we were confident things would improve. We definitely got crushed, lost literally millions of dollars, but when we opened back up, first with Outside Lands, we hit about 50 percent of our previous earnings, and a year later the other 50 percent of the audience felt safe enough to return. I think what people learned, more than anything else, was how important live music is in their lives. People realized they’d taken it for granted. It’s something I never doubted.”
