Coachella is listed among America’s largest music festivals. 2016 edition, for instance, gathered 198,000 attendees, and the income of $94 million. Its lineups feature the best rock, indie, hip-hop and EDM stars. Daft Punk, Pink Floyd, The Cure, Kanye West, Blur, Pharrell Williams, Lana Del Rey, Rihanna, Madonna and many other celebrities have performed at Coachella. The tickets are sold out in a few hours.
However, it hasn’t been that flawless and brilliant from the very beginning,—the way to success and popularity was rather tough. The Chemical Brothers, Rage Against the Machine, Morrissey, Beck, and Tool were the headliners for the first-time festival that was held in 1999. Famous stars didn’t prevent the debut of Coachella from failure, and its founders lost $800,000. They were forced to cancel the event for 2000. Nevertheless, 2004 became the year when all tickets were sold out for the first time in the festival’s history—that agiotage was attributed to Radiohead in the lineup. Three following years were marked with new records in attendance and income. It grew to a two-day and then a three-day festival, and at present, it’s extended to two succeeding weekends in mid-April with the identical lineup.
As the name suggests, the festival traditionally takes place in the Coachella Valley, namely in the town of Indio.
