The grumblings started early. It was just a few days into 2024, and music forums, subreddits, and Twitter replies to a benevolent insider by the moniker of “Festive Owl” were crawling with angry Coachella fans. There was a time, they were eager to remind you, that Coachella’s lineup dropped in the first week of January. But last year, and now this year, the days passed with radio silence. Eventually, other festivals butted in: Boston Calling, Alabama’s Hangout Festival, Bonnaroo, and Governor’s Ball all unveiled their lineups in early January.
Even other festivals were pissed. Coachella holds embargoes on artist announcements, meaning other events that share artists with the California festival can’t announce their lineups until Coachella does. Resonate Suwannee, an EDM festival in Florida, delayed at least one artist announcement due to “the radius clause of a certain festival in California.” Their passive-aggressive callout incited a panic among Coachella’s terminally online: What could be delaying the lineup announcement? Was Goldenvoice, the promoter behind the festival, scrambling to find a headliner? Maybe Coachella booked Taylor Swift, but she was forcing them to announce on the 13th, to celebrate her lucky number? Whatever it was, the well-oiled machine that used to reliably deliver shiny, untouchable lineups had rusted.
There are always the haters when a lineup gets announced. But when Coachella finally dropped on Jan. 17 (its latest release since 2013), the reaction was vitriolic. And for once, the ticket sales finally caught up with the fatigue that consumers felt. Countless entertainment outlets reported on it with schadenfreude: Coachella 2024 was not selling out. In 2023, the festival sold out within a week; this year, it took nearly a month for the first weekend of the two-weekend festival to do so.
