Now Coachella is being planned for April 9-11 and April 16-18, 2021, and Stagecoach is scheduled for April 23-25, 2021.
Following news Wednesday Coachella and Stagecoach festivals’ October dates were canceled by county health officials, promoter Goldenvoice announced new dates on Thursday (June 11) in 2021 for the Indio, California, events.
Now Coachella is being planned for April 9-11 and April 16-18, 2021, Stagecoach is scheduled for April 23-25, 2021.
Coachella’s 2020 edition was previously scheduled to take place April 10-12 and April 17-19 with headliners Travis Scott, Frank Ocean and Rage Against the Machine. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was then pushed back to the weekends of Oct. 9-11 and Oct. 16-18 and Stagecoach was moved to Oct. 23-25.
“A year without Coachella and Stagecoach is hard for us to comprehend, but we have every intention of returning in 2021,” Goldenvoice said in a statement. “We look forward to sharing our new lineups and more information. We can’t wait to be together in the desert again when it is safe.”
All 2020 passes will be honored in 2021 and pass holders will receive emails by Monday with instructions on how to proceed for new tickets or refunds.
Announcing the October dates’ cancellation on Wednesday, Riverside Public Health Officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser cited California Gov. Gavin Newsom‘s four-step outline for re-opening the state as the reasoning behind the decision, noting music festivals are not permitted to reopen until an effective treatment for the virus is widely available. Coachella and Stagecoach’s 2021 editions are still dependent on local and state government decrees and sources told Billboard earlier this week that the AEG-owned Goldenvoice was determining whether to slate the two-weekend, 125,000-capacity Coachella at likely a limited-capacity return in April 2021 or stage a higher-capacity comeback in October 2021.
Goldenvoice has not announced any plans to hold the event with less people.
This will be the first year since 2000 that Coachella has not occurred. The festival previously took a gap year break after its 1999 debut and its 2001 return.
On Monday, Goldenvoice parent AEG announced it would be laying off 15% of its workforce, furloughing over 100 employees across several divisions and instituting 20-50% pay cuts due to the ongoing COVID-19 downturn that has devastated the live events industry. “It is clear now that live events with fans will not resume for many months and likely not until sometime in 2021,” AEG chief executive Dan Beckerman wrote in a note to employees in advance of the layoffs.
