Stern Grove Festival will resume free in-person outdoor concerts with modifications
Stern Grove Festival is coming back to San Francisco this summer
San Francisco is welcoming back live music to the Stern Grove Festival this summer. Last year the event was canceled due to the pandemic. This year s event will have safety modifications in place. The lineup has yet to be announced. The event is free but you ll need to make a reservation.
SAN FRANCISCO - A summer San Francisco tradition will return, as the Stern Grove Festival announced Thursday that it plans to welcome back live, in-person concerts to the outdoor venue.
COVID-19 financially crippled many hundreds of Bay Area arts-and-entertainment performers over the past year.
The âstarving musiciansâ category swelled exponentially, for example, because many lacked digital skills needed to overcome gig loss triggered by in-person venues closing. Noteworthy exceptions exist, however.
Pianist-singer Mike Greensill draws roughly 1,000 viewers each Monday, Wednesday and Friday to his livestreams on Facebook. They take a lot of time, he says. I have to plan and plan.
His viewers ante up via PayPal and Venmo for shows that extract tunes from the 20s to the early 60s. Greensill says he s been doing well, but it s up and down. Some weeks, he makes a lot, while during others, he makes practically nothing. Even so, he enjoys streaming.
How Bay Area musicians have kept music alive in the year of COVID-19
By Woody Weingarten article
Caption: Clarinetist John Stafford and guitarist David Sturdevant, a.k.a. Medicine Ball Duo, have played music together for more than 40 years. (Courtesy of Rory Dean)
OAKLAND, Calif. - COVID-19 financially crippled many hundreds of Bay Area arts-and-entertainment performers over the past year.
The starving musicians category swelled exponentially, for example, because many lacked digital skills needed to overcome gig loss triggered by in-person venues closing.
Noteworthy exceptions exist, however. Pianist-singer Mike Greensill, widower who lives in St. Helena (after years in San Francisco with his wife, singer Wesla Whitfield), draws roughly 1,000 viewers each Monday, Wednesday and Friday to his livestreams on Facebook.
Aidin Vaziri and Lily Janiak April 1, 2021Updated: April 1, 2021, 6:02 pm
The state has released guidelines for how outdoor venues like the Frost Amphitheater in Stanford, shown in 2019, can reopen. Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle
California has finally released guidelines about how outdoor venues can reopen for live events, performances and concerts. But that does not mean Bay Area audiences will be able to return to shows right away.
It will take some time and planning for promoters and producers to figure out the new pandemic-era rules, which were released as an 18-page document on March 26. Outdoor venues must figure out how to reduce audience capacity according to the four tiers of the state’s color-coded reopening system from up to 100 people in the most restrictive purple tier to 67% capacity in the least restrictive yellow tier.