One of the biggest classic rock events in history will now take place over the course of two weekends this fall: Coachella organizers are planning to expand their version of Woodstock.
Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Neil Young, and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters will all play full sets this October as part of a new festival in the Southern California desert, according to the Los Angeles Times. The festival was originally slated to take place over just one three-day weekend but has now been expanded due to huge ticket demand.
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The new festival will be called Desert Trip, and it will cost anywhere from $199 for a single-day pass to $1,599 for a three-day pass to the stage-side standing pit, according to a newly-launched website. The mega event will take place October 7-9 and October 14-16 at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, California. The lineup will be the same regardless of which weekend attendees choose to purchase tickets.
In addition to the festival’s own video teaser, several of the performers have released short teaser videos for the upcoming extravaganza, each led by a title card simply reading “October.”
A massive undertaking for which the headliners are expected to be paid up to $7 million each, the festival boasts one of the highest talent budgets for any music event in history. But that’s probably appropriate, considering the fact that all six headliners are not just inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but card-carrying living legends.
A higher-than-usual cost to book headlining performers comes with serious perks for fans. Unlike most festivals, the new event will see its headliners playing full-length sets with full stage production, meaning that concertgoers will get the same show they would normally have to pay big bucks to see in a packed stadium.
“It’s so special in so many ways,” Neil Young’s longtime manager Elliot Roberts told the LA Times. “You won’t get a chance to see a bill like this, perhaps ever again. It’s a show I look forward to more than any show in a long time.”
Put on by Los Angeles-based promoter Goldenvoice, which has successfully run Coachella and its sister country festival Stagecoach for years, the new event will be the third desert music festival from the promoter this year.
Goldenvoice has been expanding its festival reach extensively as of late. The company recently had plans approved for an event in Pasadena called the Arroyo Seco Music and Arts Festival, which will take place in the Rose Bowl in 2017, and also has a New York festival in the works.
It’s hard to imagine the lineup could fail to bring in flocks of music fans, regardless of the relatively high cost for a wristband. In a music world that increasingly weathers the deaths of classic performers (David Bowie, Prince, and Merle Haggard this year alone), this will be a must-see event for music fans worldwide, no matter the cost.
Updated on 05-09-2016 by Parker Hall: Updated to reflect the fact that the festival has added an additional weekend.
