Thursday, January 28, 2010

Coachella call single-day visitors "clogging"

Charming. Coachella have axed their one- and two-day tickets for this year's festival. As, you'd guess, is their right. But the official reason is a little unflattering:

"The thing is," [Goldenvoice leader and festival architect Paul] Tollett [told the LA Times], "there’s a lack of hotels in the Coachella Valley, and most have a three-day minimum. Many times what happens is people get a hotel for the three days, and only go to Coachella for one or two of the days. They hit Friday and Saturday, and go home or rest at the hotel on Sunday. That’s no problem, but the problem with that is that there are people who want that hotel and are going for three days. The single- and two-day people are clogging up the hotels and making it so people who want to go for three days can’t find a hotel."

I'm not quite sure this actually makes sense, does it? There aren't going to be any fewer people going to Coachella - the day passes are being absorbed into the number of whole-festival passes being offered - and there aren't going to be any extra hotel rooms.

So this sounds like there aren't enough hotel rooms in Coachella Valley; and that's being used as a problem so that pulling a popular ticket option can be presented as if it was a solution.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well yes there will be less people going. One person going for three days vs three people going for one day each.

Although I still don't see why they can't just camp like at other festivals.

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

There won't be any fewer people at Coachella. The tickets that would have been used for day visitors will now be used for three-day tickets.

So, yes, you're right: the number of different people attending will be lower, but the number of people leaving the site on any one day looking for a bed will not be affected.

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