Music fans reacted with tears and rage against the
Coachella ticket-selling machine Tuesday.
All three days of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts
festival officially sold out Tuesday afternoon.
That means that a total of up to 180,000 people will come
to the music fest held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio
April 27 through April 29.
The Goldenvoice promoters refused to estimate the
number of tickets sold, but an Indio city official said the
Los Angeles-based company wrote on its special event
application that it was expecting 55,000 to 60,000 people
a day.
Goldenvoice co-founder Paul Tollett and publicist Marcee
Rondan earlier said they expect to limit daily attendance to
last year’s numbers, roughly 60,000 people a day.
Goldenvoice has offered to pay $200,000 a day for public
safety and other city expenses, said city Human Services
Supervisor Jim Curtis. Their application will go before the
Indio City Council for approval next month.
After emerging as one of the nation’s top music festivals,
Coachella was expanded to three days from two this year.
This also is the first time the festival sold out in February.
Single-day passes to Saturday and Sunday concerts,
featuring Red Hot Chili Peppers and the re-united Rage
Against the Machine, sold out at the end of January. Now
the three-day passes also are sold out.
The news caught many young music fans at College of the
Desert by surprise.
“How can it be just sold out like that without any
warning?” said Abraham Curiel of Indio. “Last year, it
wasn’t like that. There’s going to be a lot of people
disappointed.”
“That’s absolutely unbelievable,” said Stefanie Gonzalez of
La Quinta. There’s got to be people who bought tickets
that are going to be scalping. That may be a big issue
now.”
Tickets for day three originally sold for $85 plus fees.
However, sellers of tickets for that day were asking for
nearly $1,000 on eBay.
Rondan said some tickets could still be sold at the gate,
as Goldenvoice has done at past sold-out Coachella
festivals.” Anything’s possible,” said Ron