Sergio B. does a light show during Skrillex’s set at Pier 80 in San Francisco on Oct. 1, during the second annual Portola Music Festival last year.
Amaya Edwards/Special to The Chronicle
Fans attend the second annual Portola Music Festival at Pier 80 in San Francisco on Oct. 1, 2023.
Amaya Edwards/Special to The Chronicle
People dance during Kenny Beat’s set at the second annual Portola Music Festival at Pier 80 in San Francisco on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023.
Amaya Edwards/Special to The Chronicle
For the last two years, Portola Music Festival has presented electronic dance music’s biggest acts along San Francisco’s waterfront for tens of thousands of fans. It has also irritated many of its neighbors in the city and the East Bay whose homes have been literally shaken by the outdoor event’s vibrations.
So, for its third iteration this weekend, the San Francisco Entertainment Commission told the Chronicle organizers are amping up Portola’s sound management efforts to prevent the noise of its beat and bass-heavy performances from spilling offsite late into the night.
Goldenvoice, which has produced the two-day festival on Pier 80 since 2022, has been working with the commission in an attempt to minimize its noise impact. This year, that includes employing someone to monitor noise levels in the greater Bay Area throughout the weekend, enlisting additional call center staff to address complaints in real time and adjusting the placement of two of its four stages, which will present some of the best EDM artists in the scene such as British electronic artist Four Tet and two of Europe’s famed electronic duos, Disclosure and Justice, on Saturday and Sunday.
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Fans attend the second annual Portola Music Festival at Pier 80 in San Francisco on Oct. 1, 2023.
Amaya Edwards/Special to The Chronicle
“We’re very supportive of this because this is a responsible group,” commission Executive Director Maggie Weiland said of Goldenvoice. “I think they’re really trying to do it right.”
Due to pre-production time constraints, Goldenvoice, which is also the founder and producer of Southern California’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, declined an interview with the Chronicle prior to Portola.
Since the event takes place on Port of San Francisco property, the commission is the regulatory authority. During the 2023 edition, Goldenvoice and the commission received a total of 235 noise complaints during the festival weekend.
Labrinth performs at the second annual Portola Music Festival at Pier 80 in San Francisco on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023.
Amaya Edwards/Special to The Chronicle
“It has disturbed me,” said Mary Orr, a longtime Alameda resident who said she’s endured the noise since Portola’s inaugural year. “It was just shaking the windows and vibrating in the house.”
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Similar grievances last year prompted Alameda officials to urge the commission to “discontinue the event … or move it to an alternative venue that ensures Alameda residents will not be impacted.” But with EDM events growing in popularity in the Bay Area, it doesn’t seem that Portola is going anywhere.
“There’s a whole generation that missed what dancing and going out was about” during the pandemic, said Deron Delgado, director of operations, artists and repertoire for San Francisco’s Empire Records. He attended the festival’s first year and plans to return for both days this weekend. “There’s more appetite again for it.”
People dance during Rina Sawayama’s performance at the second annual Portola Music Festival at Pier 80 in San Francisco on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023.
Amaya Edwards/Special to The Chronicle
Goldenvoice confirmed the festival has averaged about 35,000 attendees per day each year, reflective of the region’s demand for such events. While the genre has existed for decades, recent programming throughout the city, like the Skrillex and Fred Again “rave” that drew 25,000 paying fans to Civic Center Plaza in June and the free Back to Baysics daytime dance party in July that filled Embarcadero Plaza have further proven that now, more than ever, people want a space to celebrate.
Portola Music Festival: 1-11 p.m. Sept. 28; 1-10:45 p.m. Sept. 29. General admission starts at $239.95; VIP starts at $359.95. Pier 80, 401 Cesar Chavez St., S.F. portolamusicfestival.com
“EDM is all about love and expression and community,” said San Francisco native and law student Grace Pating, who plans to go to Portola for the first time this weekend. “It’s difficult to articulate it, but it just feels right.”
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Goldenvoice, determined to make Portola Festival a Bay Area tradition, has made adjustments this year in an effort to be good community partners, Weiland told the Chronicle.
After a public hearing process that began shortly after last year’s festival and involved outreach in both San Francisco and Alameda, organizers decided to end outdoor music at 10:45 p.m. on Sunday, 15 minutes earlier than in the past two years. The change is being made despite the fact Pier 80 is located within the M-2 Heavy Industrial zoning district that generally allows for nighttime entertainment with amplified sound until 2 a.m.
“We’ve done a lot of work, mediating with those neighbors, understanding what their concerns are, having meetings and follow-ups with the city of Alameda to get a better sense of what’s going on,” Weiland said.
Skrillex performs at the second annual Portola Music Festival at Pier 80 in San Francisco on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023.
Amaya Edwards/Special to The Chronicle
The Crane Stage will be rotated so that it faces away from the water, a major factor in broadcasting the festival’s noise to residents across the bay. The Pier Stage is also being rotated slightly, though it will still face the water. Additionally, sound systems have been configured in a way that radiates less energy parallel to the ground and water, and instead directs it upward, Weiland explained.
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Shipping containers are also being placed around Pier 80 to help block the energy that radiates from the festival site.
“The sound is less of an impact than the frequency,” said Sarah Henry, Alameda’s communications and legislative affairs director and public information officer. She noted that most residents weren’t concerned with the music’s volume, but rather the rattling vibrations that the festival’s sound produced.
To that end, the festival is slightly lowering its decibel limits, including dBA, which measures overall sound heard by the human ear, and dBC, which measures low frequency impact like bass. Though it’ll likely be undetectable to festivalgoers at Pier 80, the change should help to prevent sound bleed, Weiland said.
Goldenvoice has also designated a person to roam the greater Bay Area, from nearby San Francisco residential areas to Alameda and Oakland, to measure decibel levels throughout the weekend, Weiland said. This is in addition to the commission’s two sound inspectors who regularly measure sound and verify noise complaints throughout San Francisco year-round.
People dance at the second annual Portola Music Festival at Pier 80 in San Francisco on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023.
Amaya Edwards/Special to The Chronicle
These new precautions are on top of other measures already implemented from previous years, such as sound management at the festival’s outdoor stages and warehouse venue and an onsite command center where workers can track measurements from five sound monitoring stations placed around San Francisco and Alameda where there have been the most noise complaints.
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The space also serves as a call center, where personnel can quickly adjust sound levels and address any concerns made through its hotline (877-324-8151).
Weiland acknowledged there may still be a few complaints over the festival noise, as there are with most of the city’s big music events like the annual Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park, and emphasized that unpredictable factors such as foggy weather may play a role in how sound from Pier 80 travels, as “sound literally travels through water particles in the air.” But, overall, organizers are optimistic about the weekend.
“It’s definitely been an interesting process and challenging at times,” Weiland admitted. “There isn’t anything comparable in the Bay Area that does this much in terms of sound management, so we feel really confident with it.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated which stages are being reconfigured for the festival. The Crane and Pier stages are being rotated in an effort to reduce noise that may broadcast across the bay.
Reach Zara Irshad: [email protected]
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