Irvine leaders are reconsidering moving the Great Park Live outdoor amphitheater to a different location in the park and exploring new sponsorships for the music venue in previously banned categories like alcohol.
It’s in an attempt to increase revenue as city officials grapple with a projected structural deficit that could reach $37 million in less than two years.
Councilmember James Mai proposed establishing a new location for a smaller-scale amphitheater that would come into less conflict with sporting events.
The current Great Park Live temporary outdoor amphitheater fits 10,000 people and sits on a roughly 500-acre site next to the Great Park’s Sports Complex.
That proximity creates scheduling conflicts with sporting events, contributing to millions of dollars in losses each year, Mai said during their Tuesday night city council meeting.
“Great Park Live — it’s a wonderful venue that we have, but at the present moment, it’s underutilized,” Mai said at the meeting. “We’re currently losing anywhere from $3 to $6 million on a yearly basis operating this.”
Staff confirmed during the meeting that moving the music venue to a different location could help prevent those scheduling issues.
Mai said the location and conflicts with the sports park is the biggest issue.
“There’s some weekends it’s not even being used because we have a traffic and logistics problem,” Mai said.
Council members ultimately voted 4-3 during the Nov. 10 meeting to direct staff to recommend new locations that would create fewer scheduling conflicts, allowing the live music venue to book more gigs more often.
Councilmembers Mike Carroll, Melinda Liu and William Go voted no but didn’t offer many thoughts during the meeting explaining their dissenting votes.
Part of the council majority’s approval also directed staff to review the city’s advertising and sponsorship policies to remove restrictions and allow new advertisers like alcohol companies, casinos and other lawful gambling businesses, according to Mai’s memo for the item included with the city council meeting agenda materials.
“Alcohol is being sold at nearly every event at Great Park Live,” Mai said at the meeting. “We should be able to advertise for it. If there’s a children’s event, of course we’re not going to do that.”
Councilmember Kathleen Treseder agreed the city should also seek more sponsorships.
“I agree that we need to expand the types of partnerships that we consider for these events,” she said at the meeting. “We don’t want to leave any money on the table, especially if we have providers that align decently with our residents.”
Treseder explained she “would like to keep an open mind” about moving the amphitheater to a new location.
“I don’t like just moving things around because they’re not working as well as we want in one particular place,” she said, “but if it seems like we were pretty restricted with what we were looking at before and we potentially have additional sites open up, I’m definitely willing to consider it.”
Councilmember Go, who lives in a Great Park neighborhood and whose district represents that area, said he tries to attend as many events there as possible since it’s about a mile from his home.
“We have to make a choice here, guys,” Go said at the meeting. “Either we create a public venue that supports all and we call it a day… or you’re going to complain we want to make some money.”
Irvine leaders are in the middle of trying to dodge a budget deficit by eliminating vacant positions, increasing a slew of fees and canceling certain city-sponsored events — a plan to decrease spending by $27 million and increase revenue by $10 million in order to get the city’s budget back on track by July 1, 2028.
The proposed outdoor amphitheater relocation also comes after the city’s inaugural Daisy Chain Fields music festival, hosted by pop singer Olivia Rodrigo at the Great Park at the end of August, that saw about 45,000 guests in one of the largest events ever held at the park.
During Tuesday night’s city council meeting, staff members said within the next few months they will return with some initial information about potential new locations and sponsorship opportunities for the new outdoor amphitheater, which was proposed to be called Irvine Meadows at the Great Park.
The proposal also comes as leaders mull a larger, permanent amphitheater elsewhere in the Great Park.
“We’re not in the business of running amphitheaters or entertainment venues. We have one that’s planned,” Mai said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, when that’s going to come in — we just know that’s not going to be touched until 2029 or 2030.”
“It’s great to have dreams or plans of something grand, but I’m not a specialist in where this thing should go. I want staff to tell me where this thing should go.”
