For nearly 100 years, San Francisco’s Stern Grove Festival has put on free concerts for anyone who can make it to the far-away and forested park to squeeze into a spot on the lawn or the steep hillside facing the stage.
To reduce overcrowding, in 2021 the festival began to ask guests to register online for up to four tickets on a first-come, first-served basis.
Scalpers immediately took note. In a Reddit post from three years ago, a person wrote of 15 scalpers selling tickets for a show with prices ranging from $40 to $100.
This year, the organization tried a new approach: A lottery, in which attendees are selected at random and sent a QR code for up to four tickets.
Scalpers have also cracked the new system.
Mission Local found tickets for every Stern Grove show for sale on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, going for between $10 and $50.
Even the black-market has a hierarchy. Country music star Orville Peck’s concert on July 27? That’s $50 a ticket on Facebook and Craigslist. Tickets for Michael Franti (Aug. 3) and Girl Talk (July 20) are currently listed at $35. Tickets for Channel Tres, which played June 22, went for $15 to $25.
The most economical, so far? The California Honeydrops, San Francisco Symphony, Sleater-Kinney, and Phantogram are $10 each.
On Wednesday, a seller on Craigslist listed tickets for Damian and Stephen Marley’s show on August 16 for $45 a piece, or a bundle of four for $150. Another listed two tickets for Orville Peck at $20 each.
The seller added they had “won the raffle 3x LOL.”
All of the posts on Facebook, and some on Craigslist, had been taken down by the end of day on Wednesday after Mission Local reached out for comment.
A post selling tickets for Damian and Stephen Marley’s show, on Wednesday July 15, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
A post for Channel Tres tickets on Tuesday July 14, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
A post for Phantogram and VIP tickets on Thursday July 10, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
A post for SF Symphony tickets on Thursday July 10, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
A post offering to trade or sale tickets for The Pointer Sisters on Monday July 14, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
A post for Orville Peck tickets on Tuesday July 14, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
A post for Michael Franti tickets on Tuesday July 14, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
A post for Phantogram tickets on Thursday July 10, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
A post for Chromeo tickets on Tuesday July 14, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
A post for The California Honeydrops tickets on Thursday July 10, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
A post for two Orville Peck’s tickets at $100 on Monday July 14, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
A post for Channel Tres tickets on Tuesday July 14, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma. 
Tickets for Orville Peck listed for sale on Craigslist on Wednesday July 16, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma.
Organizers are not pleased.
“Stern Grove Festival is, and has always been, a free concert series dedicated to providing access to live music for everyone in our community. We absolutely do not support the resale of tickets under any circumstances,” said Molly Fremgen, Stern Grove’s director of marketing.
The festival is aware of scalping and monitors reselling platforms, she said, voiding tickets when possible. She reminded people to only get tickets through official channels. And, if concertgoers are no longer interested, to release them back to Stern Grove for others.
“We strongly encourage our community to help us uphold the spirit of the festival by never purchasing tickets from third-party sellers and by reporting suspicious activity when they see it,” said Fremgen. “This is everyone’s festival and we hope our fans and patrons know the importance of keeping it free.”
But the sales go on.
A scalper, who listed four tickets for Michael Franti at $35 each, offered to deliver printed tickets to anywhere in San Francisco. Virtual money and ticket transfers would not work, the scalper said, as they had been cheated before.
Another posted tickets for the Pointer Sisters on Aug. 10, but didn’t specify a price. The post was taken down shortly after Mission Local reached out for comment.
A seller on Facebook asking $50 for Orville Peck declined to comment on why they were attempting to sell the tickets instead of (as Stern Grove encourages people to do) releasing them back to the platform.
They threatened to take legal action if Mission Local released any of the account’s details, and they also took down the post shortly after being contacted. Half a dozen other sellers declined to comment.
Alexia Roditis, the lead singer of Destroy Boys, which opened for Sleater-Kinney on June 29, described the resale of the tickets as “lame.”
“I think it’s supply and demand,” said one seller, who sold three tickets for Channel Tres at $18 each. The scalper, who asked to remain anonymous, said it is not the first time he’s resold Stern Grove tickets.
Other sellers, the scalper said, might just be people who planned to go to a concert, but need the cash. “I also think, due to people’s circumstances, if they need supplementary cash flow … if there’s something that’s in demand and they have it, then they would sell it for a certain price.”
It’s possible the tickets are fake; Mission Local did not pay to access them. But tickets to Stern Grove are distributed with a QR code that can be easily transferred from person to person, so they can easily be resold. The priced tickets Mission Local observed on Facebook also often appeared on Craigslist.
That’s the situation that one scalper, who had listed four tickets for Channel Tres at $25 each, described. She initially gave the tickets to friends who decided not to go. She then noticed others selling theirs online.
“Hey, I’m unemployed,” the scalper (who also asked to remain anonymous) continued. “In the end, I didn’t even sell them, and I just ended up giving them to another friend.”
I had tickets that I couldn’t used and tried to release tickets back to Stern Grove. There isn’t an obvious way to do so with their new ticketing system. I emailed them as well but never got a response, so I don’t even know whether those spots were wasted or made available to someone else.
1. Require registration with your real name
2. Make the tickets non-transferrable
3. Check id
4. If you don’t release your tickets and don’t show up, you get banned
Or… just get rid of the ticketing system, and people can line up like they used to do?
That’s the only way to minimize reselling, but it would mean a lot of tickets would go unused, plus would make for difficulties at points of entry. I’m sure Stern Grove has considered and rejected that possibility, probably for the reasons I’ve mentioned.
I’m a neighbor of the stern grove concert meadow, and attempt to be in touch with them year after year about neighborhood impacts & how we can be better partners to one another during the run. My emails go unanswered. One of my observations is that things grew more frantic, and messy, after the festival started ticketing a free event. Suddenly there are supply and demand issues, San Franciscans are left in the fray while people drive from far away to line up around the block (and make a mess in the neighborhood) for hours in advance of shows.
Perhaps the festival organizers doth protest too much? From my vantage point, ticket scalping is a created crisis, borne out of the scarcity mindset that ticket ‘sales’ has made.
Hmm, why do people line up hours in advance when it’s ticketed? I’d expect the opposite: when it’s first come, first served, there’s an incentive to line up early in the queue so you can get in.
Shame on the people who purchase those resale tickets. That market wouldn’t exists if it wasn’t for them. Shame on them and their individualistic behavior.
This is not news. Ever since they started this ridiculous ticket program the people who really want to go can’t. Now the SSG committee is giving tickets to a retailer, Solful so that they can include them in their marijuana promotional package sales. The SSG committee has made the concerts “for profit” when they are supposed to be free concerts for citizens. First come, first serve worked forever and was fair. The ticket for money is not just these scalpers, it’s the SSG committee too.
So disappointing. I was just notified i didn’t get lottery tickets for the Marley brothers and to think people are selling tickets they got for free by chance really sucks.
Reading ‘scalpers’ and ‘scalping’ repeatedly is cringe worthy. It’s offensive, which I imagine is one reason it’s considered justifiable as resellers are reviled. But make no mistake, it’s a term pulled from a genocide.
If they want to help with over crowding, why did they more than double the number of tables. There used to be 8 and they were reasonably priced for a group of regular people’s special event, not today’s 10k.
The fences and ticketing procedure needs to end. How much does it cost and who’s making it?
There’s a bunch of potential articles around what gone on there recently, I’m sure.