Coachella Festival May Be Postponed Over Coronavirus Fears


As rumors have persisted, published reports by journalist Yashar Ali and was corroborated by Entertainment Tonight and Billboard.com The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival has reportedly been postponed to October amid fears about the coronavirus outbreak. The event, which was set to take place in Indio, California, on April 10-12 and April 17-19, is expected to be postponed to the weekends of October 9 and October 16. The lineup was set to include headlining performances from Rage Against The Machine, Travis Scott, Frank Ocean and more. Coachella is the largest and arguably the most important music festival in the world, and sees an estimated 250,000 people attend Coachella each year over two back-to-back weekends at Empire Polo Club, about two hours outside of Los Angeles. The news of the postponement comes as authorities in the Coachella Valley region confirmed three new cases of the coronavirus on Monday. An online petition to call off Coachella this year has garnered more than 16,000 signatures.

Stella Young, who started the petition, wrote: “As a highly inclusive community, we are responsible to protect each and every community member, which include the ones who are elderly, fragile, or the ones who suffers from chronic diseases, cancer, immune system diseases and other form of disabilities. The lives of these people should not be downplayed and we shouldn’t risk their lives since they have a higher chance catching COVID-19 and develop critical situations that need to be hospitalized.”

Several other major festivals have been affected by the coronavirus outbreak, including South By Southwest in Austin and Ultra Festival in Miami.