Coachella 2024 is scheduled to be held April 12-21, 2024 at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, California. However, the festival has not yet announced its lineup due to issues with artist recruitment and billing in recent years.
The delay led to concerns about other US festivals due to Coachella's radial clauses preventing artists from joining other lineups. One festival, Resonate Suwannee, took to Instagram to express their frustration over the delay, saying:
“Due to the radius requirement for a certain festival in California, we need to wait to announce the artist we planned to release today. As soon as possible, we will release this information, but we ask you to be patient until then!”
More on the Coachella lineup delay and its impact
Coachella 2024 celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. The festival's lineup is usually announced on January 10 each year, but was postponed in 2024, due to billing and artist recruitment issues. The announcement delay is impacting other festivals due to the stipulations imposed by Coachella.
Radial clauses are part of non-compete regulations that provide incentives to festival promoters to allow exclusive access to artists for a certain period of time.
However, it is known that the festival organizers are implementing a strict and comprehensive clause that includes the inability to play in North America from December 15 to May 1, among other sub-clauses:
“Artists are also prohibited from playing any hard-ticket concerts in Southern California during the same time period. They cannot “advertise, publicize or leak” performances at competing festivals in California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Arizona or major SoCal concerts held After May 1 until after May 7.”
The sentence continues:
“Artists cannot announce festival appearances in the other 45 states in North America until after the Coachella lineup is announced in January (with some exceptions). They must also wait for the January announcement before announcing tour stops in California, Arizona, Washington, and Washington. Oregon , excluding Las Vegas casinos.”
Such an all-encompassing exclusivity requirement imposed by GoldenVoice prevents other festivals from booking artists. This led to a lawsuit being filed against Coachella by Soul'd Out Productions, an Oregon-based festival, which stated:
“Defendants prohibit artists seeking to perform at Coachella from performing at any other festival…within a radius of more than 1,300 miles, and for a period of approximately five months around Coachella. Such a requirement would have a significant impact on the market for music venues within the area it covers.” Radius requirement.
The Oregon festival's lawsuit was dismissed by US District Judge Michael Mossman in 2018, with the radial clause now causing problems for other festivals in the US and elsewhere in North America.
