Eddie’s List: San Francisco Bay Area Events & Things To Do

Eddie’s List: San Francisco Bay Area Events & Things To Do

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Eddie’s List: San Francisco Bay Area Events & Things To Do
Eddie’s List: San Francisco Bay Area Events & Things To Do
Stern Grove Festival Tickets For Sale
San Francisco Bay Area Local News

Stern Grove Festival Tickets For Sale

Stern Grove Concert Ticket Resales, Stern Grove Ticket Price, Stern Grove Festival Ticket Lottery Info

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Eddie Hernandez
Jun 26, 2025
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Eddie’s List: San Francisco Bay Area Events & Things To Do
Eddie’s List: San Francisco Bay Area Events & Things To Do
Stern Grove Festival Tickets For Sale
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Los Van Van, Stern Grove 2019 | photo: Eddie Hernandez

For more concerts, shows, street fairs, festivals and free live music, check out my free weekly email newsletter with over 22,000 subscribers.

Eddie’s List: San Francisco Bay Area Events & Things To Do
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By Eddie Hernandez

Stern Grove Concerts

Stern Grove, Pink Martini, Photo by Eddie Hernandez

The Stern Grove Festival is a non-profit organization that puts together free concerts for the masses in an incredible natural venue.

Some acts that have performed here include: Los Van Van, Pink Martini, Too Short, Carlos Santana, Flaming Lips, Diana Ross, Janelle Monae and more.


Stern Grove Lineups, Schedule

Shows are typically held Sundays June through August.

https://www.sterngrove.org/lineup


Stern Grove Ticket Change

Stern Grove has tinkered with their ticketing protocols over the years. In the good old days, it was first come first serve which allowed die-hard fan to get seats at shows. In the effort to be more “equitable”, it switched to a lottery system in which people can apply for tickets through a series of releases via a lottery system.


Why Did Stern Grove Change Their Ticketing System?

They claim is was for security, crowd management, privacy (sound checks in the morning) etc. I get this, (although Hardly Strictly Bluegrass does just fine w/o tickets), but the new ticketing platform is not great and could use some significant improvements.

https://www.sterngrove.org/faq


Stern Grove Ticket Lottery

6 weeks before a concert, Stern Grove releases a window for lottery applications.

People can request up to 4 tickets.

If you win, tickets must be redeemed within 72 hours.

https://www.sterngrove.org/lottery-howto


Stern Grove Ticket Resales

Thanks to the lottery system, people are now selling tickets online on platforms like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.

People are claiming tickets but are re-selling free tickets to people.

I’d advise you flag these posts.

Contact Stern Grove Festival about this: info@sterngrove.org

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sss?min_price=1&query=stern%20grove#search=2~list~0



How To Improve Stern Grove Festival Ticketing System

  • Tie tickets to a phone number.

  • Encourage people to return tickets to Stern Grove Festival so reduces chances of unused tickets that can’t be shared last minute.

  • Allocate tickets to San Francisco first, mostly

  • Prevent people from getting tickets who sell tickets, don’t use them.

  • Limit ticket users to 2 shows per season (or whatever is appropriate

  • Limit tickets to 2 people instead of 4 people


For more news, see my news articles here.


Last Minute Stern Grove Tickets

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