Stern Grove Festival Launches 2025 Season with New Ticketing Partner Tixologi
Stern Grove Festival has unveiled a new partnership with Punchup Technologies, bringing on the ticketing platform Tixologi to manage access for its 2025 summer concert season.
The collaboration marks a strategic pivot in how the long-running San Francisco festival handles ticket distribution—introducing a lottery-based system designed to boost fairness, accessibility, and system reliability.
The first weekend of ticket requests for the upcoming season saw more than 55,000 entries processed by the Tixologi platform without any technical hiccups. Festival officials heralded the smooth rollout as a testament to the platform’s robust infrastructure and user-first design.
“Our goal has always been to make amazing musical performances available to the public for free,” said Bob Fiedler, executive director of Stern Grove Festival. “By partnering with Punchup Technologies and using Tixologi, we’ve taken a major leap forward in ensuring everyone has an equal opportunity to attend, without the frustration of crashing websites or competing with bots.”
In prior years, the demand for the free, high-profile concert series often strained systems, leaving some users locked out due to technical issues or scalpers. Tixologi’s proprietary technology aims to eliminate those issues with enhanced fraud prevention, bot mitigation, and scalability.
“Our platform was built to restore trust in the ticketing process,” said Danny Frenkel, CEO of Punchup. “Stern Grove’s mission aligns perfectly with ours, and we’re honored to support their incredible summer lineup with a system that puts the audience first.”
Free Concerts All Summer Long
The 2025 edition of Stern Grove Festival runs from June 15 through August 17, featuring ten consecutive weekends of music in the scenic outdoor venue. Each Sunday concert is free to attend, but now requires a lottery request through the Tixologi platform.
The season culminates with the festival’s annual Big Picnic Weekend on August 16 and 17, featuring back-to-back performances on both Saturday and Sunday.
2025 Lineup Highlights
- June 15 – The California Honeydrops + The Dip
- June 22 – Channel Tres + ASTU
- June 29 – Sleater-Kinney + Destroy Boys
- July 6 – San Francisco Symphony with Taimane
- July 13 – Phantogram + Ha Vay
- July 20 – Girl Talk + Chromeo
- July 27 – Orville Peck + Jaime Wyatt
- August 3 – Michael Franti & Spearhead + Black London
- August 10 – The Pointer Sisters + Lyrics Born
- August 16 – Damian ‘Jr. Gong’ Marley & Stephen Marley (Big Picnic Weekend Day 1)
- August 17 – Diana Ross (Big Picnic Weekend Day 2)
More information, including the full lineup and ticket lottery details, is available on the festival’s official website at sterngrove.org.
