{"id":808262,"date":"2020-06-10T18:46:11","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T00:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=1006326"},"modified":"2020-06-10T18:46:11","modified_gmt":"2020-06-11T00:46:11","slug":"coachella-stagecoach-festivals-canceled-due-to-covid-19-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/coachella-stagecoach-festivals-canceled-due-to-covid-19-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Coachella, Stagecoach Festivals Canceled Due to COVID-19 Concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/coachella-canceled-pre.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/coachella\/\" id=\"auto-tag_coachella\" data-tag=\"coachella\">Coachella<\/a> 2020 has been canceled. As <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment-arts\/music\/story\/2020-06-10\/coachella-stagecoach-canceled-coronavirus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><em>Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/a> reports, Riverside County health officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser announced on Wednesday that Coachella and country music festival Stagecoach \u2014 both of which are held in Indio, California \u2014 have been canceled due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am concerned as indications grow that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/covid-19\/\" id=\"auto-tag_covid-19\" data-tag=\"covid-19\">COVID-19<\/a> could worsen in the fall,\u201d Kaiser said via <em>Los Angeles Times<\/em>. \u201cIn addition, events like Coachella and Stagecoach would fall under Governor Newsom\u2019s Stage 4, which he has previously stated would require treatments or a vaccine to enter. Given the projected circumstances and potential, I would not be comfortable moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese decisions are not taken lightly with the knowledge that many people will be impacted,\u201d he continued. \u201cMy first priority is the health of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Coachella and Stagecoach, which both typically happen in April, were pushed back to October in the hopes that conditions would have improved enough in the wake of COVID-19 to host the massive events. According to a report by <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/articles\/business\/touring\/9399221\/aeg-layoffs-coachella-limited-capacity-global-tours-next-year\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Billboard<\/a><\/em> on Monday, Coachella\u2019s parent company, AEG, also laid off 15 percent of its staff and instituted 20 to 50 percent pay cuts in the wake of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cIt is clear now that live events with fans will not resume for many months and likely not until sometime in 2021,\u201d AEG chief executive Dan Beckerman wrote to employees prior to the layoffs. According to <em>Billboard,<\/em> Goldenvoice \u2014 the AEG subsidiary that organizes Coachella and Stagecoach \u2014 is exploring options to hold Coachella in limited capacity in April 2021 or hold off until October 2021 for a larger festival. \u201cAbout 40 percent of ticket buyers have requested refunds for this year\u2019s festival and AEG officials think they could probably pull off the festival in April at 60 percent capacity, but are holding off on making a final rescheduling decision until there is more clarity on the pandemic\u2019s overall trajectory,\u201d <em>Billboard&nbsp;<\/em>wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The news arrives in the same week that the four-day, Chicago-based <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/lollapalooza-2020-canceled-coronavirus-pandemic-981711\/\">Lollapalooza festival canceled<\/a>. Coachella was among the first major music events to be disrupted because of the coronavirus outbreak, following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/pro\/news\/sxsw-coronavirus-concerns-963951\/\">South by Southwest<\/a> in Austin and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/ultra-music-festival-postponed-coronavirus-963013\/\">Ultra Festival<\/a> in Miami. Goldenvoice decided to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/coachella-canceled-coronavirus-964370\/\">push the two weekends<\/a> of Coachella back to October, along with its major country music festival, Stagecoach. Other big summer fests soon followed, including Bonnaroo, which was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/bonnaroo-postponed-coronavirus-pandemic-new-dates-969122\/\">moved from June to September<\/a> and Electric Daisy Carnival, which was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/electric-daisy-carnival-2020-october-978313\/\">moved from May to October.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">While the decision to call off Coachella and Stagecoach likely spells doom for the rest of the fall festival season, many health experts were saying months ago that it was unlikely that any festivals or large-scale concerts would take place in 2020. In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/pro\/news\/promoters-doctors-different-concert-timelines-985662\/\">interview with <em>Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a> in April, one epidemiologist, George Rutherford, said such events wouldn\u2019t be safe until at least 90 percent of the population is immunized, which may not happen until summer 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cI realize tons of people make their living doing this stuff, but I see [concerts] as pretty far down the list [in terms of opening events back up]; we\u2019ve got to get the schools going first,\u201d Rutherford said. \u201cJust because we get through this shelter-in-place doesn\u2019t mean everything\u2019s magically back to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"pmc-contextual-player\">\n<h3>Popular on Rolling Stone<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/coachella-canceled-covid-19-1006326\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coachella 2020 has been canceled. As Los Angeles Times reports, Riverside County health officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser announced on Wednesday that Coachella and country music festival Stagecoach \u2014 both of which are held in Indio, California \u2014 have been canceled due to the pandemic. \u201cI am concerned as indications grow that COVID-19 could worsen in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-808262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-06 17:11:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}