The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival for 2012 sold out last week in a record breaking three hours.
Coachella is the largest music festival in the country drawing in 75,000 people over three days in the hot desert of Indio, California to listen to hundreds of top artists.
This year Coachella will take place for the first time over two weekends instead of the usual one, meaning instead of selling the standard 75,000 tickets for the weekend the festival has now sold out150,000 tickets total for both weekends.
The weekends are April 13 to the 15 and the 20 to the 22. General admission passes, the most common tickets bought for the festival were sold for $285 per weekend, with general admission passes plus a bus shuttle pass for $335, and V.I.P. tickets which allow access to extra restrooms, shade and comfort zones for $665.
With this being the first time Coachella is done over two weekends it’s interesting that it sold out faster than any other year. Weekend One sold out within two hours and Weekend Two within the next hour.
The headliners this year (all bands signed will play for both weekends) are The Black Keys, Radiohead, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg while other acts include Bon Iver, The Shins, Justice and Florence and the Machine along with 140 others. This year’s lineup has been cited as one of the worst lineups in recent years, but with Coachella taking place two weekends this year and therefore selling twice as many tickets, why did it sell out so fast?
As paradoxical as it may seem, the underground music that makes up a large portion of Coachella’s lineup is becoming more and more mainstream.
When Arcade Fire won the Album of the Year Grammy for “The Suburbs” it was met with criticism by a large part of the population coupled with, “OMG who is The Arcade Fire?!?!” The other much smaller portion was crying tears of joy and had their faith restored in humanity for having their music finally be recognized by such a well known organization. Kanye West tweeted that night, “#Arcade fire!!!!!!!!!! There is hope!!! I feel like we all won when something like this happens! FUCKING AWESOME!”
Suddenly “The Suburbs” was played all over the radio and other bands similar to Arcade Fire got more attention.
Indie music has also played a larger role in film. Movies like Juno, (500) Days of Summer and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist have not only had indie music in their soundtrack but actually makes the movie part of the plot and therefore puts greater emphasis on the music itself.
Not only this, but people who have gone to Coachella usually make it a habit. So now we have people going who have gone before and new people coming who have just become old enough to make the trek.
Unfortunately, it seems that eventually it will come to the point that Coachella will sell out within minutes of tickets going on sale.
Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia
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