Stern Grove's free lineup went from the symphony to A-list bands

On a sunny Thursday afternoon in San Francisco's Sigmund Stern Recreation Grove, two dog walkers roam the central field, a gardener waters the grass, and a woman lies on a concrete slab, engrossed in her phone. It's two weeks before the season kickoff of the city's longest-running free concert series, the Stern Grove Festival, and Stacy Horne motions toward the slopes that border the amphitheater, "You'll never see it this empty," she says. When Peter Cat Recording Co. strums its first chords on June 14, there will be roughly 10,000 fans in attendance, elbow to elbow on picnic blankets.

The history of Stern Grove dates back to 1847 when Alfred Greene built a homestead on the site, his nephew planting the first eucalyptus trees. Then the Greene family built the Trocadero Inn, which still stands and is used as an operations staff center. Rosalie Meyer Stern bought the land in 1931 and named it Sigmund Stern Grove after her late husband, later donating it to the city with the intention of it being used for free events. The SF Symphony played there for the first time in 1932. 1938 marked the first official Stern Grove Festival season, and it has run continually ever since.

While taking in the crisp summer air, Horne, 53, tells me about the musical trajectory that led her to become the head of programming of the Stern Grove Festival - the person who decides that Indian rock band Peter Cat Recording Co. is a great opener, Patti LaBelle is ideal counterprogramming on Outside Lands weekend, and Al Green is the perfect endnote.

"From the first show to the last, there's sort of like a throughline that makes it feel like one complete experience rather than a random collection of shows," Horne said.

She grew up in New Jersey, so naturally she's a Bruce fan and attended his last Chase Center concert. During high school, she listened to the Grateful Dead. Pink Floyd's Momentary Lapse of Reason tour was the first concert she attended without her parents. Once in college at UMass, she helped organize concerts by the likes of Phish, the Beastie Boys and Pearl Jam.

She eventually made her way to New York City, working on defunct conference CMJ Music Marathon and the JVC Jazz Festival (now the Newport Jazz Festival), and started her own series, Hudson River Rocks, which hosted the White Stripes way back in 2001. She made her way to San Francisco in 2006 when she got a production job for Noise Pop Festival. The opening act that year was Flaming Lips (a Stern Grove 2023 alum), performing in the impossibly small Bimbo's 365 Club (sadly, no room for Wayne Coyne's signature bubble crowd walk).

"I knew that Noise Pop was in February, and it seemed like a really good time not to be in New York for winter, so I reached out ... What was supposed to be a couple of months became 21 years," Horne said.

While at Noise Pop, she produced the beloved Treasure Island Music Festival (2007-2018, RIP). Meanwhile, she began working on events at the Battery, which led to a full-time position in 2014, until the pandemic hit in 2020. That's when she shifted over to Stern Grove, while balancing a couple of other booking and production jobs (Mill Valley Music Festival, SF Music Week and programming at Manny's).

To say music is her life is an understatement.

"I say my work is other people's leisure time, but the reality is it's like my leisure time too," Horne said.

Part of the magic of Stern Grove Festival is that it feels like a great big picnic, but throwing the summer series is no walk in the park. There's a staff of 200, plus hundreds of day-of volunteers. It's always been free, but the pandemic led to some changes that have been met with varying reviews. Some people miss the old ticket-less days when attendees queued up to enter (but have conveniently forgotten the need to arrive at the crack of dawn to get a seat). There's now a fenced perimeter around the show area, a lottery ticket system and security checks at the entrances - all modern adaptations that make for a safer and ultimately smoother concert experience.

"The pandemic in hindsight was an opportunity to refresh and reset what Stern Grove had been for 83 years. Where can we go with this, where can we expand on all the amazing greatness that is Stern Grove?" she said.

For many decades, the programming leaned more toward classical, with expansions into jazz and world music, some folk and bluegrass, and a little more rock music coming before the pandemic. Last year, the festival had mash-up pioneer Girl Talk and riot girl legends Sleater-Kinney.

"It's always been genreless in a sense, but now I think it's even more so now. It's really spread out," Horne said. "You have the symphony one week, and you have Major Lazer the next week." Other standouts this year include indie rock icon Japanese Breakfast, Colombian electro-tropical act Bomba Estéreo, trending country singer Charley Crockett and legendary rap group Public Enemy.

Booking for the festival begins roughly 15 months ahead of time, meaning 2027's acts are being finalized now. The goal is to program a mix of "legacy" and "discovery" acts, with wide genre representation and diversity in styles. So if they have reggae two years in a row, it might be time to skip a year. Stern Grove has a loose radius clause, allowing bands to play other shows across Northern California, which helps sweeten the deal. Some bands love the fact that it's a free show, whereas others can't afford it as a career move - they need to sell out a hard-ticket show at a venue like Fox Theater (capacity 2,800) so that the following year, they can graduate to a larger venue like Bill Graham Civic Auditorium (8,500). A free event like Stern Grove, even with higher capacity, doesn't mean the same thing to talent buyers.

The job is "relationship-based," Horne said, building on decades of work with a variety of different music management firms. Those close relationships mean that when someone in Liz Phair's band got COVID days before her Stern Grove show in 2022, Horne was able to pick up the phone and secure Ani DiFranco as a replacement in a matter of days.

Acts on Horne's personal bucket list include David Byrne and Grace Jones, plus figuring out a way to host more marquee locals like Santana, Green Day or Metallica. The hardest part of the job?

"That I only have 11 shows," she said. "You can't even imagine the kind of artists we have to say no to. People I would die to work with."

If you haven't been to a Stern Grove show, it's hard to convey just how positive the vibes are - it's a microcosm of San Francisco at its best, a free event with thousands of strangers of all ages picnicking together, dancing to the music in unison. Horne finds it can be hard to communicate that energy to acts, but when artists arrive, they're often taken aback by the beauty. A fond memory was early one morning when she saw LeAnn Rimes walk off her tour bus and joyfully wrap her arms around a redwood.

"She had felt compelled to hug a tree. I just love that so much. To me, that says it all of how artists feel about the grove when they're in it."

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