Yes, you heard right. Sources say that the sixth largest music festival in the world is being postponed more than half a year, set to happen in October of 2020.
Coachella Music and Arts Festival was originally planned to happen over the course of two consecutive weekends: April 10-12 and April 17-19. Last year, the music festival ranked in over $1.4 billion including profits towards Coachella Valley and the city of Indio. Postponing the festival will have unknown outcomes for this year's profits, which were expected to be even larger, says NBC Los Angeles.
pc https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/01/03/youtube-coachella-partnership-line-up/
A total of 273,000 guests of all ages rally in the hot California dessert in April for a variety of reasons--teenagers come to dance to that years biggest artists (this years headliners were set to be Travis Scott, Rage Against the Machine, and Frank Ocean among others) while adults gather to admire art and try interesting foods. Many testify that housing and transportation during the festival weekend were booked in advance with friends, bookings that are not only unlikely to be available in the same demand in October but also unlikely to get fully refunded for April. Creators and fans alike are losing money to this egregious postponement.
The postponement is due to the rising coronavirus outbreak in the United States. A multitude of events have been canceled or changed due to the spreading virus: artist tours like Louis Tomilson and Avril Lavigne, Comic-Con meetups across the United States, and even The Bachelorette's original vacation spot in Italy. A complete list of events that have been affected by the virus as of March 6 can be found here.
2014 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival - Weekend 2 - Day 1
Getty Images for Coachella
Although many excited fans are let down by this announcement, things truly could be worse. Keeping the festival on the weekends planned would place it in the peak of the US coronavirus outbreaks, according to the New York Post; and, speaking from personal experience, musical festivals are no clean environment. Whether it's drinking water from a stranger's Camelback, coughing up dirt and dust, or moshing against hundreds of other sweaty bodies, music festivals are quite the germ fest. People attend Coachella from all over the United States, so keeping the festival running would only expedite it's spread to areas which would otherwise be relatively safe.
We can only hope that current cases stay contained and the world gets a hold on the virus so that the festival can stay on for October. Personally, I don't know if I can wait much longer to hear Frank in real life...
