The first two Portola Music Festivals in 2022 and 2023 elicited widespread noise complaints, particularly from residents on the island of Alameda — who said they were kept up with rattling windows and unpleasant, dubstep-borne bass vibrations all weekend.
The organizers and promoters of the electronic music fest, Goldenvoice, vowed this year that reconfigured stages and other measures with the direction of speakers would change all that — and it seems to have. But more complaints actually came from San Francisco residents this time.
We can't really have fun things in SF without someone complaining. And even though Outside Lands has been going on for over 15 years now, cranky residents of the Sunset and Richmond still find reason to complain that their sleepy neighborhoods aren't so sleepy for a few hours every August.
And so this year's Portola Festival garnered a bit more complaint about noise from people across San Francisco, even as far away as Duboce Triangle, as the Chronicle reports.
"It was a very low-frequency heavy bass sound," said Duboce Triangle resident Dean Morehouse, speaking to the Chronicle, adding that it was "irritating" and "miserable."
People familiar with the curmudgeony Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association know that it is a neighborhood whose residents are often irritable, but perhaps a bit more sound drifted that direction this year.
According to Goldenvoice, total complaints from Alameda and the East Bay went down from 203 last year to 80 this year. Complaints about the volume appeared to spike on Sunday — with only 24 complaints lodged to 311 and the festival's hotline Saturday, but 200 came in on Sunday.
The majority of those Sunday complaints came from San Franciscans.
The Entertainment Commission praised Goldenvoice for lowering overall decibels by 2 during the festival, due to new equipment and configurations.
For those at the festival — about 42,000 per day, according to Goldenvoice — things were still extremely loud if you were close to one of the stages' speakers.
The festival brought in $900,000 in rental fees for the Port of San Francisco, and appeared to be more popular than ever this year. As SFist noted, the number of VIP tickets sold has clearly gone through the roof, necessitating a VIP area that now takes up about a quarter of the festival footprint.
Photo courtesy of Portola Music Festival
