Despite recent reports, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival will likely remain in Indio, CA in 2014. Indio city councilman Sam Torres had proposed a new admissions tax that would cost the festival an estimated $4 million each year. Promoter Goldenvoice threatened to move Coachella, as well as the also Indio-based Stagecoach festival, to a new location if the tax made it onto the November ballot. As a result, Torres has backed off and dropped the tax proposition completely.
According to the Desert Sun, the admissions tax would have charged 5 to 10 percent of ticket sales (an estimated $18 per ticket for Coachella) to all events hosting more than 2,500 people. This would have helped Indio recover from financial hardship; however, losing the festivals and the massive revenue that they bring to the city each year altogether could be detrimental.
“The potential for the music festivals to move out of the city exists, and if this should occur it would negatively impact the region; I cannot in good conscience allow this to happen no matter how dire the city’s circumstances,” Torres said in a statement.
Had the admissions tax passed, Paul Tollett, President of Goldenvoice, told the Desert Sun that neither festival would occur in 2014 and that they would seek a new venue outside of Indio for 2015.
Though Goldenvoice has not officially announced that the festivals will stay in Indio, it is likely that they will, now that the admissions tax is off the table. The Los Angeles Times reports that Goldenvoice has invested quite a bit of money in the city of Indio, in order to benefit the production of its festivals. Thus, one would think that the promoter has no desire to move the festivals unless it seems necessary.
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