The idea was to host a music festival in the desert — away from control of big music conglomerates.
Today, it's owned by a controversial billionaire. This is the story of Coachella.
Today, it's owned by a controversial billionaire. This is the story of Coachella.
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MusicTranscript
00:00Coachella really lives up to the hype.
00:01Let me see your band if you're an influencer.
00:16Is Coachella anti-LGBTQ plus?
00:30Some portion of the service charges Ticketmaster collects on its sale of tickets is distributed back to the promoters in the venues.
00:42It is this incestuous relationship and the lack of any national competition for Ticketmaster that has created the situation we're dealing with today.
00:49He said, can we do a show out near Palm Springs?
00:51And we scoured, found a field a half hour past Palm Springs.
01:00I remember Paul coming up to me and he said, I got this idea.
01:13We want to do a big festival in the desert and we want to have all these bands play.
01:30And everyone looks at Coachella and says, oh, it's a juggernaut.
01:38It's the biggest festival, the most important music festival in the world.
01:41I'm telling you, as recently as 2008, OK, it was an economic disaster.
01:47And it's the only really business like this in the world.
02:00There's nothing as big as this with as many venues, with as many teams.
02:04Some years ago, our foundation gave in traditional ways to very traditional good works and charity.
02:26The research we put out that suggests very clearly that homosexual behavior is harmful not only to society, but more importantly, to the individuals who engage in that behavior.
02:56It's often used as an excuse to say, oh, you'll never find you can't really find a conglomerate or an enormous company that has a completely clean moral slate.
03:20I went to Coachella for the first time about four years ago when I first came to L.A.
03:35And in England, I used to go to all the music festivals, like three of them every year.
03:40And so it feels really good. It feels kind of nostalgic to be here, actually.
03:51Coachella was just amazing.
03:53Just getting to see Dr. Dre and Snoop and, you know, all those things, the whole hologram of Tupac just right in front of my face.
04:01It was amazing. If you've ever wondered what this famous music festival is like, there's lots of music, lots of partying, lots of standing, lots of people.