About 45,000 people are expected to attend a sold-out music festival hosted by Olivia Rodrigo at Irvine’s Great Park later this month as the city is slated to get partial revenue from parking fees and ticket sales for an event that’s meant to benefit charity.
The inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival is set to be one of the largest events ever held at the Great Park, which typically hosts concerts and similar events for about 10,000 guests.
A host of nearby residential streets will be closed during the Aug. 29 music festival, with people having to pay nearly $100 to park in the Great Park for the concert – or take a shuttle for $50.
Last year, the city held the largest city-sponsored event at the park for July 4 — while the city expected about 18,000 to 25,000 attendees to attend, over 40,000 people showed up, leading to delayed programming and severe traffic jams.
[Read: Can Irvine’s Great Park Handle Large-Scale Events?]
It was the first time such an event was held at the Great Park — producing so much demand that the 2026 celebration was canceled after city leaders ran out of time to secure necessary vendors for things like street closures.
Now, tens of thousands of festival goers are expected to descend upon the Great Park on the last Saturday of August for the event, which will feature performances by Rodrigo, Stevie Nicks, Chappell Roan and more.
It’s being produced by C3 Presents; Live Nation has owned a 51% stake in C3 since 2014.
The city is slated to receive $5 for each ticket sold — totalling an estimated $225,000 — and $30 per parking ticket in addition to some other fees.
The festival will utilize the Great Park Live stage in addition to a main stage on the other side of the Great Park balloon that will be constructed specifically for the event and removed afterward.
Leaders Prep Traffic Management Plan For 45,000 Visitors
After last year’s Fourth of July event, both the Irvine Police Department and private security for the Daisy Chain Fields festival are cracking down on safety measures, specifically surrounding parking.
“The Fourth of July was where people just showed up, it was almost like an unorganized event,” Irvine PD Public Information Officer Kyle Oldoerp said in an interview.
“There’s a robust plan in place with collaborative partnerships between city and state partners, private parking, management companies.”
City staff said C3 has been working alongside the police department to create a parking and traffic management plan.
Multiple streets within the Great Park neighborhoods will be shut down in the hours leading up to the festival, and residents can get a dashpass from the city that allows them to access blocked streets. Residents will need to provide proof of address to get a dashpass.
Those who park on a closed street without a dashpass can be cited, Oldorep said.
“Anybody who is in violation will be either cited or towed if appropriate, but we will have a strong police presence in the area controlling traffic and parking,” Oldoerp said.
Click here to access the Great Park Neighborhood Portal for Daisy Chain Fields music festival.
Parking costs are $95 per vehicle at the Great Park. There’s also a $50-per-person shuttle option for attendees coming from UCI or the Honda Center.
Income from on-site parking fees will be split, with a portion going to the city and some being used to cover the cost of road closures, parking enforcement and shuttles.
No specific breakdowns of which portions would cover transport costs were available as of Aug. 17, according to Irvine Public Information Officer Linda Fontes.
According to the agreement for the event, C3 will pay the city $5 per ticket sold and $30 per parking ticket sold in addition to a $45,000 rental rate, $7,500 for load in and load out, plus a $150,000 food and beverage buyout. That agreement was approved by council members during their meeting on Aug. 11.
This expected revenue comes as the city faces a potential $47 million structural deficit by the end of the decade, after having overspent by $6 million this fiscal past year.
Irvine PD is also tracking social media following the rise of “teen takeovers” in the county.
“A lot of venues are beefing up security and creating secondary layers and whatnot, so I know all of those contingencies are being considered to make sure it’s a safe event,” Oldoerp said.
Net Proceeds Slated For Nonprofits Benefiting Women & Girls
The festival features an all-female lineup, and net proceeds from the event will be directed toward nonprofit organizations dedicated to advocating for women and girls, according to the festival’s website.
Nonprofit organizations partnering with the festival include Baby2Baby, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Women’s Law Center, Planned Parenthood and more.
City leaders discussed some planning for the festival during a Great Park board meeting on July 28. The city council also serves as the Great Park board.
“I’m really excited about this opportunity,” Councilmember Melinda Liu said at the Great Park board meeting. “This is a great opportunity for us to support female empowerment. I have two girls myself, and we’re big Olivia fans.”
Councilmember Betty Martinez Franco said the festival’s mission aligns with the city’s resolution in support of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) that passed in 2021, making Irvine the one of the few OC cities to locally implement the framework that promotes gender equality.
Martinez Franco also said it’s a great opportunity to see what other events might lie in store for the Great Park in the future and thanked staff.
“It’s going to be a good place to start thinking of future festivals and how we can do programs,” she said. “I just want to commend you for finding these artists that are connected with young people, and not only that, with issues that support women.”
Both Martinez Franco and Liu are up for reelection this year.
Councilmember William Go, who chairs the Great Park board and lives within the park’s neighborhoods, said the community is excited for the festival.
“These are the events that the neighborhood is excited to see and would like to see more of,” he said.
Irvine’s History With Live Nation
Irvine has had a long and complicated history with Live Nation after city leaders spent several years trying to bring a permanent amphitheater to the Great Park for live music and performances that would have been run by the promoter.
When the Irvine Meadows amphitheater closed its doors in 2016, after operating for 35 years, a temporary FivePoint Amphitheater operated by Live Nation was constructed.
In 2022, Irvine officials started moving toward creating a permanent, publicly financed amphitheater at the Great Park that would have been paid for by the city but operated by Live Nation.
That deal died after city leaders refused to meet Live Nation’s revenue demands, pointing out the promoter would receive most of the money for a facility that was largely financed by the city.
In exchange for running the amphitheater, Live Nation was set to pay the city $3.5 million each year, a cost that would have increased by 3% annually. But by using that payment schedule, the city wouldn’t have broken even on their initial $100 million investment until the venue had been open for more than 20 years.
Live Nation was also set to keep all of the amphitheater’s sponsorship and naming rights, along with all revenue from VIP parking despite paying for little of the construction.
Leaders officially nixed the deal in July 2023, when city council members narrowly voted to stop negotiating with promoter Live Nation.
[Read: Irvine Kills Negotiations With Live Nation, Wants Amphitheater to Generate City Revenue]
The FivePoint Amphitheater, which was always meant to be temporary, closed in October 2023.
Great Park Live, the current temporary outdoor venue at the Great Park that will be utilized for the Daisy Chain fields festival, opened in June 2024. It’s only meant to host 10,000 people.
Inaugural Report on Orange County Women & Girls
The Daisy Chain Festival with an all-women line up featuring proceeds slated for groups to support women and girls comes as a recent report detailed the hardships women face across Orange County.
The Orange County Commission on the Status of Women and Girls released a report analyzing the status of females in the county earlier this year — the first of its kind since the original commission dissolved in 1991 — yet not much has been done with it.
The 2026 report found that women and girls in Orange County “fare comparatively well” in several areas like employment, earnings and educational attainment when measured against statewide benchmarks.
However, the report notes that Orange County women are more concentrated in lower-wage industries than men and earn 87 cents for every dollar men earn in the county.
The report also found that Orange County women head households with children at a higher rate — 40.9% — than the overall population, which is 30%.
The report comes while Orange County public health officials opt not to pursue renewing a state grant to fund a program aimed at supporting Black women while they navigate pregnancy and prepare for birth.
[Read: Questions Emerge Over Why OC Officials Didn’t Seek Funding for Black Infant Health]
“Childcare costs consume nearly one-quarter of the median income for women without additional support, underscoring how even moderate economic pressures can strain working families,” reads a portion of the 2026 report on Women and Girls of Orange County.
“These findings reflect both the unique strengths of women and girls in OC and the real pressures that shape their daily lives. The Commission will continue to use these findings to inform recommendations that advance the well-being of women and girls.”
Angelina Hicks is the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service Editor. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.
Michelle King is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood fellow. You can reach her at mcaitlin254@gmail.com.
