Two popular music festivals in California have been canceled again due to the coronavirus pandemic, local health officials announced Friday.
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Stagecoach Country Music Festival were both scheduled to take place in April, but have been canceled, Riverside County health officials said.
The festivals take place annually at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, about a 2.5-hour drive from Los Angeles, and are known to draw large crowds.
“This warrant is designed to reduce the likelihood of exposure to COVID-19,” the county health department said in a message tweeted by the director of public health Cameron Kaiser.
The recent cancellations mark the third time the festivals have been postponed since the start of the pandemic.
Due to the pandemic, public health official Dr. Cameron Kaiser today (Jan. 29) signed a public health order canceling Coachella Valley Music and Arts, Stagecoach Country Music festivals scheduled for April 2021. We look forward to when the events can return. https://t.co/YAIn8uTea9
– Dr. Cameron Kaiser (@RivCoDoc) January 29, 2021
Coachella and Stagecoach were originally delayed from Spring 2020 to Fall 2020. Both festivals were then rescheduled to April 2021, before being canceled on Friday.
Riverside County Public Health Department stated in the order that the two festivals with “international reach” attract “hundreds of thousands of visitors.” Due to the estimated number of people attending the two events, tracking down contracts for COVID-19 cases would be “unfeasible, if not impossible.”
Kaiser has not indicated when the events will be rescheduled.
As of January 29, Riverside County had a total of 271,910 cases of COVID-19, with 1,128 people currently hospitalized, according to the county’s health department.