The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which attracts more than 100,000 fans daily from around the world to Southern California, is closed for the third time.
A county health order canceled the event, as did the country music festival, Stagecoach, on Friday, citing the recent virus outbreak that has been plaguing California for months, despite some recent progress. Both were due to start in April.
In the order, Dr. Cameron Kaiser, public health officer for Riverside County, said that both events are “international meetings” that were too risky amid the emergence and appearance of more contagious variants.
“If Covid-19 were detected at these festivals, the scope and number of participants and the nature of the venue would make it impossible, if not impossible, to track down those who may be at risk,” said the request.
The Coachella festival, founded in 1999 and held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, attracts up to 125,000 people a day and has become a thermometer for the multi-billion dollar tourism business.
The festivals were some of the first major events canceled in April 2020, in the early days of the pandemic. They were rescheduled for October and, in the fall, again postponed to April 2021.
New dates have not been announced.
On Friday night, the Stagecoach homepage had its 2020 refund policy posted on the landing page, but had yet to issue a statement. The Coachella website did not mention the cancellation of the festival, but highlighted its new clothing line launched at the end of last year.
While Coachella is one of the biggest and most celebrated musical events in the country, Stagecoach is a smaller country music festival hosted by the same promoter, Goldenvoice.
Last year’s Coachella was initially set to be spearheaded by rapper Travis Scott, singer Frank Ocean and a reunited Rage Against the Machine, along with dozens of other artists of all genres. Stagecoach was slated to feature Carrie Underwood, Eric Church, ZZ Top and more.
The concert industry has been essentially frozen since mid-March, when AEG and Live Nation, the corporations that dominate the sphere of live music, suspended all tours in North America in response to the coronavirus pandemic, leaving artists – as well as their teams and all other affiliate workers – not knowing when these large-scale events will return. Other major music festivals, including Lollapalooza in Chicago, Levitation in Austin and Summerfest in Milwaukee, were also canceled for this year.