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Outside Lands weekend is nigh. Those of you with cars (and with neighborhood permits where applicable), be warned: Don’t move your car until Monday.
Although the weekend music festival can spell trouble for residents looking to get around the city, its 75,000 daily attendees can often be a boon for our local businesses, and a boost to the neighborhood economy. Here’s what’s buzzing north of the park.
Cinema SF, the local nonprofit behind the 4 Star and Balboa Theaters, began its artist-in- residence program this week with actor and director Robert Townsend.
This weekend, a curated series of movies at the 4 Star features Townsend in conversation with various guests. For the Aug. 7 screening of “Network” (1976), he’ll sit down with local journalist G. Allen Johnson, and for the August 9 showing of “The Meteor Man” (1993) he’ll talk with famed Bay Area director Boots Riley.
Find Townsend’s full residency schedule here.
Also at the 4 Star this month: A day-long celebration of food on film Aug. 15, and live music from local and touring acts throughout the month. See the full calendar here.
Neighborhood community group Friends & Neighbors will host a book-making workshop on Sunday, Aug. 9.
The workshop will teach participants how to bind books with a sewing machine and format them for different purposes, from organizing thoughts to keeping an analog address book.
Sign up for the workshop here. In keeping with the analog slant, Friends & Neighbors says it is “a phone-free space.”
Two different gyms are coming to the north side of the 5800 block of Geary Boulevard between 22nd and 23rd avenues.
Ad Astra, a boxing and strength-training gym, is coming soon to 5820 Geary Blvd., according to a sign (apparently hand-painted) out front. Find more information on its website.
A few doors down, women’s strength-training gym Roar, which currently has outposts in Noe Valley and Ingleside Terrace, is coming to 5844 Geary Blvd.
No matter which form of exercise you choose, you’ll have your fix of natural wine and Ethiopian coffee with the imminent arrival of HI NRG on the southwest corner of Geary Boulevard and 22nd Avenue.
The Clement Street HI NRG pop-up’s last day celebration is Sunday, Aug. 9, before it moves to the permanent Geary location. Stop by 443 Clement St. near Sixth Avenue (the site of wine bar High Treason) for “one last dance” with DJs and free drip coffee.
The final Heart of the Richmond Night Market of the summer is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 15, on Clement Street between 22nd and 25th avenues. Expect food and clothing vendors, live performances and, according to Instagram, a pet show.
Ubers, Lyfts and Waymos should not be servicing this area and should be banned. They primarily serve couples or just a few people at a time. This equals congestion and often those snafus that have frequently been reported. That is not the way to deal with huge crowds.
MUNI never provides enough vehicles at such events. N Judah and even 7 Haight lines need to be dramatically beefed up. Private shuttle vans would be helpful with limited stops at major MUNI transfer points and BART.
I’m surprised at the assertion from a fellow Richmond district resident that Outside Lands is good for businesses in the hood.
Most I know hate it, in part for the reason identified: Locals can’t move their cars until Monday. They get fewer locals visiting.
Muni is, to put it mildly, unreliable for the whole weekend. The festival has its own bars and restaurants. The only rush comes when it closes at 10pm and a crowd of people already drunk swarm bars for a couple hours and after restaurants are already closed.
We all, mostly, support the festival. But it’s not a boon for local businesses in my experience. The wealth of bottles abandoned on the street don’t help either.