There will indeed be a pay-per-view livestream of the sold-out Dead & Company shows August 1-3 at Golden Gate Park, and anyone worldwide can tune in for both the opening acts and the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead performances.

Ever since we learned that Dead & Company would be playing Golden Gate Park on August 1-3, the burning question among Deadheads who could not afford those $635 tickets was are they going to livestream the three shows online? After all, there was a good, affordable livestream when they played Oracle Park in 2023. But this year, less than ten days out, all we had heard was that there’s going to be an IMAX screening in movie theaters of just Sunday night’s show, a one-show-only deal that is underwhelming to fans nationwide who do not have an IMAX theater within hundreds of miles of where they live.  

Image: Nugs

But on Wednesday morning, the news just broke that there will be a pay-per-view livestream of all three Dead & Company shows from Golden Gate Park, and it will be available worldwide. You can buy single-night shows, or all three shows as a package, plus you get the full sets from each show’s opening band. That’s nearly six hours of music each night, all to enjoy from the comfort of your own home and trusty Whip-It dispenser.

The broadcast is being handled by the subscription live music streaming service Nugs, who also brought us that 2023 Oracle Park livestream. Single-night shows are $39.99 for an HD broadcast ($49.99 for 4K), or the whole three-night bundle for $99.99 in HD ($129.99 for 4K).

“Each night you can watch three sets of music, the openers and presumably the two Dead & Company sets,” Nugs founder and CEO Brad Serling tells SFist.


As a reminder, those opening acts are Billy Strings (Friday, August 1), Sturgill “Johnny Blue Skies” Simpson (Saturday, August 2), and the Trey Anastasio Band (Sunday, August 3). Each opening act is expected to start their set around 4 pm PT on their given day.

I personally bought and watched that Nugs Oracle Park livestream 2023, and it was a technically excellent and very well-edited broadcast. There were unforgettable segments with the surprise Sunday night drone show, and the visual sets they offered during a little thing we call “Space.”

“The same team will be shooting the Golden Gate Park shows,” according to Serling.


The pay-per-view also buys you 60 days of Nugs All-Access, a giant vault packed with full Dead & Company concerts, rare Grateful Dead archives, plus recent shows from the Bruce Springsteen and Metallica tours, and a number of “exclusive live performances from the Dead’s extended musical family.”

This all grew from Serling’s exhaustive collection of live Grateful Dead bootleg cassettes that he was putting out in the 1990s.

“I started Nugs in the 90s as a way to share my Grateful Dead tapes,” he tells us. “That became so popular that the Grateful Dead called me up and said that they either needed to shut me down or go into business with me. So they ended up hiring me.”

That led to the webcast platform LivePhish.com, and now the larger Nugs, over the course of 25 years. “It grew from there,” Serling says. “We signed Metallica. We signed Bruce Springsteen. We signed Pearljam. We’ve done every iteration of the Dead, post-Jerry.”


And speaking of the Dead post-Jerry, we had another burning question for Serling. Will John Mayer be playing in the Jerry Garcia role at these upcoming Dead & Company Golden Gate Park shows? It turns out that yes, he will.

“John Mayer is Dead & Company, along with Bobby and Mickey, of course,” he tells us. “That’s not a secret or a surprise or anything.”

Related: Muni Is Truckin’ Grateful Dead-Themed Buses for Next Weekend’s Big Dead & Co. Concerts [SFist]

Image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 31: (L-R) John Mayer and Jay Lane of Dead & Company, and Honorees Bob Weir and Mickey Hart of Dead & Company and of the Grateful Dead perform onstage during the 2025 MusiCares Person of the Year Honoring The Grateful Dead at Los Angeles Convention Center on January 31, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)