Coachella music festival scheduled for 2021 ‘as of now’

The Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals have been rescheduled to 2021 after this year’s events were cancelled due to coronavirus, organisers have said.

The festivals had originally been set to take place in the California desert in April before the pandemic threw the entertainment industry into chaos.

Organisers pushed both events to October, but a state health official cancelled them earlier this week.

A spokesperson for promoter Goldenvoice has now said the 2021 editions will take place in April “as of now”.

Coachella, one of the world’s biggest and best-known music festivals, is set for two weekends over April 9-11 and April 16-18, while country music event Stagecoach is pencilled in for April 23-25.

A Goldenvoice statement said: “This is not the future that any of us hoped to confront, but our main focus remains the well-being of our fans, staff, artists, desert partners and everyone involved in the festival.

“A year without Coachella and Stagecoach is hard for us to comprehend, but we have every intention of returning in 2021.”

After confirming the new dates, organisers said they will be sharing the new line-ups and more information at a later date.

They added: “We can’t wait to be together in the desert again when it is safe.”

All purchased tickets for the 2020 festivals will be honoured for next year’s events, organisers said, and emails will be sent on June 15 with instructions for a refund.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival takes place in the Indio desert near Palm Springs and attracted about 250,000 attendees last year, while Stagecoach draws more than 70,000 country music fans.

Coachella had been set to be headlined by Rage Against the Machine, Frank Ocean and Travis Scott.