Coachella postponed as more festivals scramble amid coronavirus [updated]

With the impact of coronavirus affecting public gatherings, sport, music, and everyday life globally, the next domino to fall is Coachella.

On Tuesday, organisers were preparing to postpone the festival, with Billboard accurately reporting rescheduled dates on the Weekends of October 9 and October 16.

Less than 24 hours later, a statement released on the Coachella website has confirmed the postponement citing “COVID-19 concerns”.

“At the direction of the County of Riverside and local health authorities, we must sadly confirm the rescheduling of Coachella and Stagecoach due to COVID-19 concerns.

“While this decision comes at a time of universal uncertainty, we take the safety and health of our guests, staff and community very seriously. We urge everyone to follow the guidelines and protocols put forth by public health officials.

Coachella will now take place on October 9, 10 and 11 and October 16, 17 and 18, 2020 and Stagecoach on October 23, 24 and 25, 2020.

All purchases for the April dates will be honoured for the rescheduled October dates with refunds available for ticket holders unable to travel to Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.

The festival was originally slated to take place across two weekends between April 10 and April 19, with headliners including Rage Against The Machine, Frank Ocean, Lana Del Rey, Travis Scott, Thom Yorke and Flume.

Scoop: A source familiar with the arrangements tells me that the Coachella festival will be postponed due to Coronavirus concerns and moved to the weekends of October 9 and 16.

As of now, the same lineup is confirmed to perform.

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 10, 2020

Rolling Stone reports that Riverside County officials have confirmed six cases of coronavirus active in the county where Coachella, takes place.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Sampa The Great, The Chats, Skegss, Dom Dolla, Hayden James and Amyl & The Sniffers were the other Aussie artists set to head to the festival this year.

The postponement follows the official cancellation of Austin music gathering South By Southwest earlier this week.

With several international acts now cancelling their tours in Australia too, it stands to reason that punters could be worried about local festivals too.

Bluesfest is the next major Aussie festival on the calendar, less than a month away, while Groovin The Moo is set to take place at the end of April.

Bluesfest organisers tell TMN that it plans to go ahead as scheduled: Thursday, April 9 to Monday, April 13 at Tyagarah Tree Farm in Byron Bay

TMN understands that extra sanitisation stations will be set up as a precautionary measure.

Yesterday Miley Cyrus also announced that she’ll no longer headline an Australia bushfire benefit concert to be held in Melbourne by TEG Dainty this Friday, March 13.

“I am so disappointed to not be there, but I have to do what is right to protect the health and safety of my band and crew,” she posted on Twitter.

“I will still be making a donation to help the victims of the Australian bush fire. I’m sorry to miss everyone in Australia, but I will be back soon.

Australia: Due to the recommendations of local, state, federal and international government authorities, including the Center for Disease Control, to reduce potential health risks in response to the current global health crisis, we are no longer traveling to Aus for the show.

— Miley Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) March 10, 2020

UPDATE 11/03/2020: Tassie music and arts festival Dark Mofo has now been cancelled over coronavirus concerns.

There were more than 100,000 tickets sold each year for the festival, which provides a yearly boost to the Tasmanian economy, and this year would have generated around $11million.

“After a thorough risk assessment on the potential impact and disruption of coronavirus, we have been left with no option other than to move the current program to 2021,” said Dark Mofo creative director Leigh Carmichael.

“The implications of COVID-19 and subsequent travel, financial and logistical issues are beyond our control.”