Featured Image: Photo by Andrew Ruiz on Unsplash
Coachella, the biggest music festival in the US, has endured a 14%-17% dip in ticket sales as the first weekend came to a close in California.
The first weekend of the festival has typically sold out in a few hours but this year it took nearly a month for tickets to the first weekend (April 12-14) to sell out.
There is an anticipated attendance of nearly 200,000 over two weekends, with the second taking place from April 19 to 21, marking an 80% uptake of the total available amount.
Despite the decrease in sales, Coachella remains the most-attended and highest-grossing annual festival in North America, beating Austin City Limits and Electric Daisy Carnival at the Las Vegas Speedway, which saw attendance reach more than 130,000 in 2022.
The likes of New Orleans’ JazzFest, Los Angeles’ Beach Life festival, and Daytona Beach’s Welcome to Rockville festival have all failed to sell out this year.
There are several reasons that industry experts believe is to blame for the lower interest.
Ticket prices for Coachella this year increased by $50 (£40/€47) from 2022, where three-day passes cost $449 compared to $499 in 2024, an increase of about 11%. In 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, three-day passes were priced at $429.
Some believe that fans are more sensitive to price increases than they have been in the past while others blame headliner talent, arguing that Coachella’s top acts of Lana Del Rey, Tyler the Creator, and Doja Cat have not generated the same hype that artists like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé did in 2023.
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