Coachella Might Be Coming to New York
Organizers for the popular fest are scouting Queens for the site of a new festival.
The organizers of Coachella, a highly attended music festival that has taken place each spring in Indio, California since 1999, are rumored to be scouting Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, NY as the possible site for an offshoot festival called Panorama.
Since Coachella’s start in ’99, attendance numbers grew at such a rapid rate that they had to extend the festival dates to two full weekends. Expanding to include the East Coast seems like a viable option, allowing more fans to attend, but not everyone is thrilled about the idea. Organizer’s for NY’s only major music fest (for now) Governor’s Ball, are downright pissed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXwOPdwCf4o
“New York City is big enough for two music festivals, but the proposed timing of this sets up an unnecessary rivalry,” said Tom Russell, who works with Governors Ball, in an interview with Gothamist. “We’re a small, local promoter up against a big corporate machine. We know how those fights typically work out.”
The most recent Governor’s Ball, which went down in early June, sold an estimated 55,000 tickets, which wasn’t much of an increase from the 50,000 sold the previous year. This year’s Coachella sold out in under an hour, making it the fastest selling event for them to date. So, yeah, maybe there is something to worry about in the form of fancy, and highly organized competition. But still, New York is massive, and if it can handle nine Starbucks for every square mile in Manhattan alone, odds are it can accommodate two music festivals.
Photos by Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
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