LOS ANGELES — Concert promoter Goldenvoice is taking
its wildly successful Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival model
and doubling it. Paul Tollett, the architect of Coachella in Indio,
Calif., and head of Goldenvoice, unveiled plans Tuesday to launch a
second multi-day music event in 2012 at the Indio site. Coachella will
now be held over two consecutive weekends, the first on April 13-15,
2012, and second on April 20-22, 2012.
“We will attempt to produce two identical festival
weekends,” the company said in a statement. “That means same lineup,
same art, same place, different people.”
Modeled after major long-running European festivals
such as Denmark’s Roskilde and England’s Glastonbury, Coachella is
coming off its second-consecutive sell-out year, hosting approximately
90,000 people per day. Tickets for the 2011 edition went in a record six
days, and the event, held at the Empire Polo Grounds, is considered the
unofficial kick-off to the summer festival season.
“We know many of you were unable to attend this
year’s festival because passes sold out much sooner than anticipated,”
read the release. “We were truly surprised by the overwhelming response
and remain honored by your passion and enthusiasm. We also know some of
you purchased through nonlegitimate sources and were inconvenienced,
gouged or totally scammed. We hope that these changes will give everyone
the opportunity to purchase directly from Coachella.com.”
Passes will go on sale via Coachella’s official site
Friday and will be available until June 10. In prior years, tickets were
not sold until the lineup had been revealed, and were sold via
Ticketmaster. Tickets are once again priced at $269, not including
additional fees, and for those who don’t wish to pay in full up front
Goldenvoice is again offering tickets through a layaway plan, with 10
percent down and eight equal monthly payments.
Coachella 2011, headlined by the likes of Kanye West,
the Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon and Robyn, was one that featured
numerous technological and hospitality tweaks. To cut down on
counterfeiters and gate crashers, Goldenvoice instituted electronically
encrypted wristbands that festival-goers were forced to wear to get
within sight of the grounds. Additionally, Goldenvoice has been heavily
investing in enhancements to the Polo Grounds and surrounding area,
helping to upgrade roads by funding additional lanes, and increasing
festival space by 25,000 square feet.
Fans will be allowed to buy tickets for each weekend,
should they be inclined, but festival passes will be limited to four
per household. Additionally, fans will not be allowed to change weekends
once a purchase has been made. Passes will be mailed in March, and if
tickets remain after the one-week presale, they will be made available
once the lineup is announced. International attendees will have the
option of picking up their passes at an off-site will call.
Tollett had earlier told the Los Angeles Times that
he had been caught off-guard when Coachella sold out in six days, as
previous fests had been on sale for weeks, and typically sold out only
days before it began. After the sellout, Goldenvoice kept a vigilant eye
on counterfeit tickets — photos of which were posted on the Coachella
website — and has also taken note of the number of real wristbands being
sold on eBay or Craigslist.
“Do NOT buy passes from a third party,” Coachella has already warned on its site. “They cannot be authenticated.”
Though precise details on the technology and look of
the 2012 passes have yet to be unveiled, Tollett noted in April that had
he an indication that Coachella would be a quick sellout, “We maybe
would have made the tickets nontransferable.”
Tollett said at the time that he was investigating
numerous ticket options, including passes that could potentially have
the buyer’s name and photo on them.
“There is something hard about this,” Tollett said at
the time. “Some people will buy two or four tickets, or maybe even six,
and they do plan to take their friends. They may not know which
friends. They just know they’re going and they’re hoping they have a
girlfriend in three months. So if you make everyone put the name on the
ticket, it changes the flexibility.”
The now three-day fest began as a two-day affair in
1999, and was then a money-loser for Goldenvoice. After skipping a year
in 2000 and scaling down to one day in 2001, Coachella eventually found
its footing, earning a reputation for adventurous bookings and peaceful
crowds.
Coachella has spawned a host of copycats around the
country, including Chicago’s Lollapalooza and San Francisco’s Outside
Lands, and Goldenvoice also produces the country-focused Stagecoach on
the Indio grounds.
As for any hint toward the 2012 lineup, Goldenvoice
said artists will not be unveiled “for a while,” adding, “your patience
is appreciated.”
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