Beyoncé: Levi’s Stadium

Beyoncé is coming back on stage this summer to bring more iconic performances. After releasing her latest album, “Renaissance,” the singer announced on Feb. 1 that she would be going on her eighth world tour to promote her new music and reunite with fans.

“Renaissance” is Beyoncé’s seventh studio album and celebrates queer culture. Inspired by the history of the underground queer-ballroom scene, she created an album filled with house-music songs in homage to the black queer roots of music. She released “Renaissance” in July of 2022 and revealed it to be the first part of a three-act project that she recorded over the pandemic.
It is filled with 16 songs, most of which are upbeat and feel-good. Two of the songs on the album made it on Billboard’s top 10: “Break My Soul” peaked at number one and “Cuff It” shot to number 10.

She starts her tour for this album in Stockholm, Sweden, on May 10 and will perform throughout Europe until July, when she will start the North American leg of her tour. In total, her tour will last five months, from May to September, and includes performances in 40 cities. Beyoncé will perform locally at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on Aug. 30.

Fans are thrilled about this announcement as this is her first tour since 2016 when she performed her album “Lemonade” on her tour “Formation.” Following the “Formation” tour, she went on the “On The Run Tour” with her husband Jay-Z after the release of their joint project, “Everything is Love.” Beyoncé has built a record as a standout performer, and the promise of yet another set of great performances made ticket sales rise.

Through online ticket-selling websites, tickets went on sale on Feb. 23, and were sold using the Verified Fan process. People first signed up to have the chance to participate in an early sale, allowing them to get better seats with the original pricing. Currently, Beyoncé tickets for the Bay Area stadiums range between $200 dollars for nosebleeds and $3,000 for VIP seating.

However expensive seats may be, fans are dedicated to seeing Beyoncé live, promising to show up in numbers. So far, the singer has sold 2.2 million tickets for the “Renaissance” World Tour, earning a spot on The Billboard’s year-end Top Tours chart.

Outside Lands: Golden Gate Park

California is a great place to be if one is a music festival lover. Although Coachella is often viewed as the pinnacle of music festivals in the state, there is one festival that often, undeservingly, slips under the radar: Outside Lands.

The Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is an annual event that takes place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park from Aug. 11 to 13. Produced by Another Planet Entertainment, Superfly and Starr Hill Presents, the event is the largest independently owned music festival in the U.S. The music festival is a full-day event, going from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 9:40 p.m. on Sunday.

Throughout the day, attendees can enjoy musical performances, food and drinks and shop Outside Lands merch. The festival also has five different spots to listen to music. The main stage, the “Lands End Stage,” is where the main performers of the night play. Then, throughout the festival, there are smaller stages where other performances occur, such as the “Twin Peaks,” “Sutro” and “Panhandle” stages. There is also the “Soma” tent where people can listen to house and disco music without interruption.

Every year the music festival brings on amazing artists, and this year’s lineup is no different. Big names are performing on the 2023 stage, such as Megan Thee Stallion, Kendrick Lamar and Lana Del Rey. OutsideLands is also a great place to discover new artists. In the long list of well-known artists are performers that might have gone unnoticed in the past year. This year’s festival will also include international artists.

Because of the high-quality performances, tickets to Outside Lands are expensive. There are three types of tickets for a full three days at the festival: the General Admission ticket costs $449, the General Admission+ ticket costs $674 and the VIP ticket costs $1,029. Currently, the General Admission+ and VIP tickets are sold out, but there is still a chance to grab general admission tickets.