Coachella Music Festival Moving to 2022

Beyonce at the 2018 Coachella Music and Arts Festival
Beyonce at the 2018 Coachella Music and Arts Festival. Photo by imageSPACE/SilverHub/REX/Shutterstock (9629728a)

Coachella Music Festival is moving from October 2021 to April 2022. Stagecoach, the country music-themed festival, which takes place the weekend after Coachella’s two weekends, is also expected to move as well.

This move is the fourth time the dates for Coachella have been rescheduled. The festival was first moved from April to October 2020 and then to April 2021 and then to October 2021.

Sources said the festival has been postponed due to the pandemic, even though many promoters and live-entertainment companies are planning for a partial resumption of touring to start in late summer and fall. Coachella usually sells out of its 125,000 tickets per day and over 100,000 people traveling and gathering in a single location is problematic for COVID-19.

Even though the event would have been months away in October, preparations for the event would need to start ASAP, which presents challenges for the event.

This rescheduling doesn’t mean that other festivals scheduled for fall won’t happen because many states have less strict COVID protocols than California and venues in Texas and Florida have concerts scheduled for spring.

“There’s a big difference between having two weekend of Coachella in California and throwing a country festival in Florida,” one source told Variety.