In 2007, capacity for the inaugural Stagecoach Country Music Festival was not determined by the amount of food and drink on hand, nor by the number of people local officials said they could safely accommodate.
Stacey Vee, vice president of Los Angeles-based Golden Voices, which stagecoaches the sprawling Empire Polo Club grounds in Indio alongside the annual Coachella festival, said:
The answer at the time was 12,000. This was the size of the crowd that saw George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Brooks & Dunn while surrounded by the Southern California desert mountains and palm trees.
15 years later (and one global pandemic), Goldenvoice hopes the 2023 version of Stagecoach will attract seven times more fans, with Luke Bryan, Kane Brown and Chris Stapleton headlining Monday announced. The singers put a contrasting spin on country traditions, with Bryan (also known as a judge on “American Idol”) singing his tunes for an intimate party, and Brown dabbling on his smooth hip-hop beats. and Stapleton pushed his raspy voice into old-school soul music.
Other acts for the three-day show scheduled for April 28-30 at the Empire Polo Club include one weekend after Coachella 2023, April 14-16 and April 21-23; The line-up has yet to be revealed, but it will include John Purdy. , Riley Green, Old Dominion, Gabby Barrett, Parker McCallum, Melissa Etheridge, Morgan Wade, Tyler Childers, Bryan Adams, ZZ Top, and again Brooks & Dunn.
“This will be our 15th anniversary,” Vee said of next year’s festival, explaining the gap created by COVID.
According to Jay Williams, co-director of the WME’s Nashville office, the stellar bill reflects Stagecoach’s status as “the grandpa of country festivals.”
However, the line-up announcement comes at a difficult time for the festival’s promoters in general, and Golden Voices in particular. After selling out regularly for a decade, Stagecoach fell short of his 85,000-ticket target this April, but Thomas Rhett, Carrie Underwood and Luke Combs headlined the event. And this year, Goldenvoice has reportedly canceled two of his festivals (the Latin-focused Viva LA and the hip-hop-based Day N Vegas), reportedly due to sluggish ticket sales. there is Outside the Rose Bowl, his new one-day alternative country show, Palomino, which took place in July, garnered laudatory reviews but had a smaller crowd than the company had hoped for.
“It’s tough out there,” Vee said. “There are many things currently working against the festival, including rising production costs, inflation and the lingering impact of COVID-19.”
To add to the list, 10 people were killed in a crowd rush at Astroworld in Houston last year, and rapper Drakeo the Ruler was stabbed to death at Once Upon a Time in Exposition Park in Los Angeles in December. I was. Vee declined to comment on safety issues at these festivals held by Goldenvoice’s parent company, AEG’s biggest rival, Vee. But broadly speaking of her experience with ticket buyers, “you should be able to assume it’s safe at the festival,” she said.
So what does Stagecoach (general admission passes cost $389, but various VIP packages top out at a staggering $2,749) do to attract packed houses? Beyond, the show features celebrity chef Guy Fieri in a cooking demonstration with an artist. Featuring the trio of musicians and slash actors Ryan Bingham, Rainie Wilson and Luke Grimes from the hit TV series Yellowstone. And Vee said he’s promising an unannounced guest appearance, much like Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose made a surprise drop-in for Underwood in April.
“It’s true that next year’s headliners saw it and said, ‘We gotta get to work,'” Vee said. Vee said of Rose’s cameo appearances in which she joined Underwood for her GNR’s “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Paradise City” performances. And in 2016, when he performed Coachella at GNR, Axl said, “I couldn’t stop smiling the whole time I was on stage.” After the gig, Vee said the two “stayed in the stagecoach and partyed until the early hours of the morning.”
Stagecoach is also working to deepen its reputation as a place of diversity in the country music scene, which has been recently fueled by debates about institutional racism and sexism. “A lot of people don’t think I’m in country music when they first see me,” Brown, who will be the first person of color to headline the festival, said in an email. But he said, “You don’t have to look a certain way to hear or love country music. The stagecoach is one of my favorite places to play and I’ll be back with everyone.” can’t wait,” he added.
Although the 2023 bill doesn’t include a female headliner (a fact that could draw criticism), rapper Nelly, who has collaborated with Tim McGraw and Florida Georgia Line, and viral country rap hits. “My Truck,” and several members of the LGBTQ community at Etheridge and Trixie Mattel.
“They’re absolutely trying to expand their representation,” Etheridge said, adding that she’d wanted to play Stagecoach for years. I have the space to do
When asked if he was confident that next year’s festival would sell out, Vee said he was encouraged by the strong advance stagecoach held before the line-up was announced. (Normal passes go on sale Friday morning.) “Having these tickets in the bank gives me a little more confidence in the market, which feels great, especially now.”
“But with 85,000 tickets, we have a lot of tickets to sell.”
Copyright 2022 Tribune Content Agency.
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