Coachella history

I just found this, though it came out a few weeks ago. The article gives a good overview of Coachella' history (read the entire article -- I've just included some excerpts). An on-going purpose of this blog is to show how festivals come together: what people have learned along the way in terms of successes and mistakes.

thedesertsun.com 4/27/07| Coachella evolves through the years: "Tollett, a soft-spoken native of the region who wears a trademark baseball cap, had been booking concerts since 1982. In 1993, he and his business partner, the late Rick Van Santern, booked Pearl Jam at Empire Polo Club because the Seattle band didn't want to perform in Los Angeles.

About 25,000 people showed up, but the polo field was so huge, Tollett said the crowd 'looked like 1,000.'

That's when he knew a big music event in Indio could be done. But, could it be successful with less popular bands? ...

In 1997, Tollett sketched some plans for the type of regional festival he'd like to stage.

He and Van Santern had worked the Lollapalooza festivals and knew the logistical problems of a traveling musical marathon. But they saw there was an audience for music that couldn't be heard on radio.

'There's actually a really big crowd of people who like small, different bands. Maybe if you put a bunch of them together, that might be a magnet for a lot of people,' Tollett said.

He began scouting locations, considering the Santa Fe Dam in East Los Angles before returning to Empire Polo Club.

'We were blown away how it was just calling our name to do a festival there,' he said of Empire....

They wanted to pattern their event after European festivals featuring simultaneous acts on multiple stages....

'We just went for it," Tollett said. "We didn't really have any business plan - just do a big show. I'm glad we did now.'

They booked bands they wanted to hear even if they weren't big record sellers or concert attractions like the acts at the recent Woodstock festival. The top bands over the two days were Tool and Rage Against the Machine and Beck and the Chemical Brothers.

'There were two different factors on (programming) - the European festival feel and the rave scene,' Tollett said.

'A lot of that had nothing to do with the Billboard charts. A couple of the bands were on radio, but the other 80 weren't, and I knew it was those 80 that were going to make the show really have a life in the future.'

... 20,000 people showed up the first day ...

'The show turned out so well - not draw-wise, but just how fun it was,' said Tollett. ...

Tollett later said Goldenvoice lost $800,000 that first year."