The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has been pushed back for the third consecutive time.
Riverside County officials announced the news Friday, after public health officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser signed an order that effectively canceled the event's April 2021 dates. The order, which also pulled the plug on the Stagecoach Music Festival, cited ongoing concerns over COVID-19.
"This Order recognizes that both the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Stagecoach Music Festival are music concerts and gatherings of an international scope, attracting hundreds of thousands of attendees from many countries, including several disproportionately afflicted by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic," the order states. "This order is intended to reduce the likelihood of exposure to COVID-19, thereby slowing the spread of COVID-19 in communities worldwide."
Coachella was expected to return to Indio, California, on April 9-11 and 16-18. The festival's original 2020 dates were pushed back to October of that year, before it was entirely scrapped. Travis Scott, Frank Ocean, and Rage Against the Machine were scheduled to headline the 2020 festival; it's unclear how the lineup will change.
During a radio interview this month, Palm Springs Mayor Christy Holstege said she anticipated that large-scale events, like Coachella, would be pushed back into the fall.
"We've been focused on, you know, making sure that everyone's wearing masks and enforcing as much as possible, really so that we can keep our residents safe and have a bright future in a few months when we can reopen," she explained. "We're hoping that those events will be rescheduled to the fall of this year."
Coachella organizers have yet to announce new 2021 dates. Stay tuned as more information becomes available.
