Usher and Gwen Stefani are set to headline Salesforce's Dreamfest benefit concert at Oracle Park on September 16, with tickets starting at $1,500 and proceeds flowing to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital. The concert lands in the middle of Dreamforce, Salesforce's massive annual tech conference, and this year's show will also spotlight a 24-year-old nursing student who received care at the hospital as its Colin Powell Medal of Courage honoree.
The lineup was confirmed by Salesforce, according to KTVU, which reported that Usher — an eight-time Grammy winner known for hits including “Yeah!,” “My Boo” and “Superstar” — will share the Oracle Park stage with Gwen Stefani, the former No Doubt frontwoman and “Hollaback Girl” singer who has also served as a coach on The Voice. VIP ticket packages for the September 16 show include reserved concert seating, a cocktail reception and an after-party, per the outlet's reporting.
Dreamfest has become something of a revolving showcase for arena-level headliners since its founding, with past editions featuring Metallica, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Pink and Janet Jackson, KTVU noted. Last year's concert split performances between Metallica at Chase Center and Benson Boone at Bayfront Park, following Pink and Imagine Dragons at Oracle Park in 2024 and Foo Fighters at Chase Center in 2023, according to New Noise Magazine.
A Nursing Student's Path From Patient to Honoree
This year's Colin Powell Medal of Courage will go to Cait Joseph, a 24-year-old who received specialized care from UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital and is now pursuing a career in nursing, KTVU reported. The award, first presented in 2010, recognizes a hospital patient who has shown exceptional bravery, and it went last year to 2025 recipient Andrew Santos, who survived an aneurysm and stroke at age 17 before becoming a pediatric advocate, according to background compiled by CASE.
The concert itself has raised more than $130 million to date for UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals through ticket sales and corporate sponsorships since it was established, per Music in SF. That fundraising sits alongside a broader wave of giving from Salesforce and its co-founders: Marc and Lynne Benioff surpassed $1 billion in lifetime philanthropic contributions to the Bay Area in October 2025, a milestone anchored by a $100 million gift toward constructing and modernizing UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital facilities in Oakland, Salesforce announced.
A Conference With a Massive Local Footprint
Dreamfest is the entertainment centerpiece of Dreamforce, Salesforce's flagship conference running September 15–17 at the Moscone Center, which is expected to feature more than 1,600 technical and executive sessions along with global streaming on Salesforce+, according to a guide from Apex Hours. The gathering draws nearly 50,000 in-person attendees and generates roughly $130 million in direct local economic revenue for San Francisco while supporting an estimated 35,000 local jobs, Salesforce has said.
South of Market restaurant owners have reported that Dreamforce week can bring in two to three weeks' worth of regular business revenue in just three days, even as the city deploys hundreds of off-duty officers and mobile surveillance units around the Moscone Center campus, as Hoodline previously reported. The city's Office of the Mayor said San Francisco is projected to surpass its pre-pandemic visitor spending record in 2026 and set a new high in 2027, with major conventions like Dreamforce cited as a key driver and hotel occupancy pacing at 70.7% in late August.
Salesforce's Deepening Ties to the City
The concert's civic backdrop comes as Salesforce continues to expand its investment in San Francisco. The company announced a $15 billion commitment over five years in October 2025 to build a new AI Incubator Hub at its campus and fund local workforce development and AI training programs, according to Salesforce and reporting from Datamation. That pledge follows a year in which Salesforce reported second-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue of $11.3 billion, an 11% increase year-over-year, and raised its full-year revenue guidance by up to $300 million on a constant currency basis, the company said in August.
Together, the numbers frame Dreamfest as more than a celebrity concert bolted onto a corporate conference. It's a fundraising engine for a children's hospital, a marquee event for a company reshaping its hometown's tech and housing landscape, and, for one weekend, a stage shared by a Grammy-winning R&B star, a pop-rock icon and a young nursing student once treated at the hospital the whole night is meant to support.
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