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Coachella 2024 is scheduled to be held from April 12- 21, 2024, at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, California. The festival, however, has still not announced its lineup due to issues regarding artist hiring and billing in recent years.
The delay has resulted in concerns for other U.S. festivals due to the radial clauses of Coachella preventing artists from joining other lineups. One of the festivals, Resonate Suwannee, took to Instagram to express their frustrations at the delay, stating:
"Due to the radius clause of a certain festival in California, we need to wait to announce the artist we had planned to release today. As soon as we can, we will release this information, but we ask for your patience until then!"
More on Coachella lineup delay and its impact
Coachella 2024 celebrates its 25th year anniversary this year. The festival's lineup is usually announced on January 10 each year, but it has been delayed in 2024, reportedly caused by billing and artist hiring issues. The announcement delay is affecting other festivals due to the radial clauses enforced by Coachella.
Radial clauses are part of non-compete regulations that provide incentives for festival promoters to allow exclusive access to artists for a certain amount of time.
However, the organizers of the festival are known to enforce an extensive and strict radial clause that includes not being able to play in North America from December 15 to May 1, among other sub-clauses:
"Artists are also barred from playing any hard ticket concerts in Southern California during that same time period. They can’t “advertise, publicize or leak” performances at competing festivals in California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington or Arizona or headliner concerts in SoCal that take place after May 1 until after May 7."
The clause continues:
"Artists can’t announce festival appearances for the other 45 states in North America until after the Coachella lineup is announced in January (with certain exceptions ). They must also wait for the January announcement before publicizing tour stops in California, Arizona, Washington and Oregon, with an exception made for Las Vegas casinos."
Such an exclusive and extensive clause enforced by GoldenVoice prevents other festivals from booking artists. This resulted in a lawsuit against Coachella from Soul’d Out Productions, a festival based in Oregon, stating:
“Defendants prohibit artists who seek to perform at Coachella from performing at any other festival...within a distance that extends over 1,300 miles, and for a period of nearly five months surrounding Coachella. Such a clause has a substantial chilling effect on the market for music venues within the territory covered by the Radius Clause.”
The Oregon festival's lawsuit was dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman in 2018, with the radial clause now causing problems for other festivals in the US and elsewhere in North America.
