| EVENT REPORT 04.20.09 1:11 PM |
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Signs of the Times: Coachella Returns With a Layaway Plan and an iPhone App
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 | A fire-breathing serpent art installation at Coachella
Photo: BizBash |
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Here’s the thing about the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival: It’s completely implausible. The Empire Polo Field venue in Indio is more than 100 miles from metropolitan Los Angeles—in a place where temperatures can soar above 100 degrees in April. Plus, at a time when other concerts are cutting prices to lure crowds, the cost of Coachella has not decreased: The three-day festival now costs $269, not including service fees, or $300 at the door, which means the cost for an average attendee’s weekend with lodging and food could easily hover around $1,000. And that’s in a recession.
Nevertheless, the tenth annual incarnation of the festival—which began on Friday with a sold-out program headlined by Paul McCartney that appealed to an older crowd on a mild-for-the-desert day and wrapped Sunday—drew thousands of its faithful into the desert, where acts including the Cure, the Killers, M.I.A., and Morrissey also got top billing among about 150 acts. To encourage attendance, festival organizer Goldenvoice—led by Paul Tollett—offered fans the opportunity to purchase their tickets on a layaway plan for the first time, paying either with 50 percent down or in three installments. Goldenvoice also offered camping passes on layaway. (Goldenvoice does not release official attendance numbers until after the show concludes and the official figure is tallied.)
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Coachella, Goldenvoice, Going Green, Global Inheritance, AT&T, iPhone |
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| NEWS 04.13.09 5:23 PM |
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Coachella Preview: Global Inheritance Puts Senior Citizens on Reengineered Golf Carts as Part of Earth-Conscious Programming
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 | A preview of Global Inheritance's wind-powered golf cart
Photo: Todd Doherty |
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The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is an event known for continual reinvention. To that end, Global Inheritance, the nonprofit that comes up with and executes Coachella's environmentally friendly programs, has a few new tricks up its sleeve for this year's festival, which kicks off Friday at the Empire Polo Field in Indio.
The "18 & Up" program (which makes a play off the 18 holes on a golf course) brings together engineers and artists to reeningeer and decorate golf carts to use wind, solar, ethanol, and biodiesel instead of standard fuel as a means of educating concertgoers about alternative energy sources. Artists will decorate the carts with themes built around festival artists such as M.I.A., Franz Ferdinand, and Amy Winehouse, whose presence was announced, and then not surprisingly to anyone familiar with her track record, later stricken from the festival lineup. Every morning before the festival grounds open, Global Inheritance will host races in the carts, creating something of a spectacle. "We're going to have senior citizens driving around in the carts playing a round of golf," said Global Inheritance executive director Eric Ritz. "We thought [about doing the stunt with] either celebrities or senior citizens, and we thought seniors were a lot less [attitude] to deal with and a lot more fun."
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Coachella, Goldenvoice, Going Green, Global Inheritance |
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| NEWS 02.27.09 5:11 PM |
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Coachella Enlists Local Artists to Enliven Festival's Recycling Program
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As the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival approaches in April, organizers are planning some new programs—for instance, Goldenvoice's recession-appropriate layaway ticket-buying option—as well as continuing some well-received ongoing ones, like the recycling effort that will enter its sixth year. To spruce up the offerings, Coachella-affiliated activism org Global Inheritance is inviting local artists to submit their work to be considered to design one of the 24 recycling bins featured at the festival. Bins that it deems "non-offensive" will go to the Los Angeles Unified School District after the event. This month, the group is selecting 24 artists and three alternates to redesign 96-gallon recycling bins. Winning artists will receive a pair of tickets for this year's festival. —Alesandra Dubin
RELATED TOPICS
Coachella, Goldenvoice, Going Green, Global Inheritance |
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