Mayor Lurie took to Instagram to announce a series of late December SF concerts at places you wouldn’t expect them, featuring Skrillex, Swedish House Mafia, and Fisher, between December 19-30.
It was a lucrative and bustling summer of major SF concerts this year, with the Dead & Company shows that brought throngs of Deadheads to town, Outside Lands (which is always money in the bank), and the big free Shaboozey show at Civic Center that drew more than 20,000 people. Now Mayor Daniel Lurie wants to bring that magic to the festive — but usually rainy — final two weeks of December.
“We had the summer of music, and now we have the winter of music coming to San Francisco,” Lurie said in a Thursday morning Instagram post. We will quibble that Summer of Music was a separate concert series from Noisepeop and Civic Joy Fund, but we cannot complain that Lurie just announced late December concerts by Skrillex, Four Tet, Fisher, and a New Year’s Eve grand finale by Swedish House Mafia.
The December 19-20 Fisher shows (with Chris Lorenzo and Partiboi69) had already been announced months ago. But it’s unique that the 2024 Portola festival headliner Fisher is playing the buttoned-down likes of the Moscone Center, which is normally a corporate conference center. Maybe it will be ravelord-ed up for these shows?
Meanwhile the Skrillex and Four Tet concert is Tuesday December 30, at the site of the Portola Festival, Pier 80. Same goes for the New Year’s Eve Show with Swedish House Mafia the next night. Both of those are presented by Coachella promoter Goldenvoice.
None of these are free shows, they cost the standard price that most concerts these days cost. Is SF so “back” that we don’t get free concerts anymore?
So these are effectively normal SF concerts, but at venues that would not typically host such shows, or at least, not at that time of year. But is there some special economic value that these would provide, as opposed to normal shows at, say Bill Graham Civic Auditorium? (Which happens to currently be dark each of those nights in question.)
Possibly so. Concerts at Moscone Center are a new thing, so there may be some positive effect for Union Square and SoMa hotels. Pier 80 would not usually have shows that time of year, so maybe this is an experiment that could pay off for Goldenvoice to make such affairs an annual thing. All of these shows may be trial runs for ideas that have not been attempted before, and could be again if they are hits.
The good news for Alameda and Potrero Hill residents who don’t appreciate noise is that the two Pier 80 shows will be in the indoor warehouse component of that venue. The bad news for people attending is that warehouse has traditionally had, well, less-than-outstanding sound quality at past Portola festivals.
Either way, the Fisher tickets at Moscone Center are already on sale. The Skrillex and Four Tet tickets go on sale Friday, November 7 at 10 am PT, and the Swedish House Mafia tickets also go on sale at 10 am PT on Friday, November 7.
Image: READING, ENGLAND - AUGUST 25: Skrillex performs during day three of Reading Festival 2024 at Richfield Avenue on August 25, 2024 in Reading, England. (Photo by Joseph Okpako/WireImage)
