Coachella organizers apologize for a large number of traffic backups, weekend 2
The company attending the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival publicly apologized this week that the company’s traffic problems have left campers waiting in cars for hours to enter the festival venues on the weekend of the event this year. To prevent duplication, the fix will be done before weekend 2 begins, he said.
George Cunningham, senior vice president of public safety at Goldenvoice, explained the dilemma and the steps taken to address the problem during a conversation with La Quinta City on Tuesday.
He entered the Empire Polo Club on Thursday, April 10 after car campers described a lot of traffic waiting time (more than 12 hours), as a large number of cars backed up the surrounding roads, especially Monroe and Madison Street.
Hundreds of cars wait on a series of lines to pass the safe screening area before reaching the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indiana, California on Thursday, April 10, 2025.
Cunningham told the council that the long backup was partly due to early arrivals of campers on Thursday morning, and that the whole day was “never relaxed.”
“Every year, we usually pause between 1:00 and 6:00 pm (Thursday), and there just fell down,” Cunningham said. “We don’t have that. Everyone wants to come early.”
Cunningham said DJ Chris Lake offered a show on the campground earlier than usual for the festival’s first Thursday night performance. He noted that by 4:30 p.m. this Thursday, the festival had 6,300 campers parked on the festival’s grounds, and in a typical year, the festival would not see many campers until late Thursday.
The festival also handles what Cunningham calls a “staffing challenge” and cannot fully equip its 32 toll stations for use on Thursday morning for vehicle safety inspections.
“We have six tolls,” Cunningham said. “We have addressed that. If entities, we work with those employees, we already have a plan to meet with that shift time, and we have developed a secondary plan to expand the plan and equip others with the plan.”
For Coachella Weekend 2 and Stagecoach, organizers also added 12 tolls for security checks on batches 2A near Madison Street and 50 Avenue, according to Cunningham.
“We will drive[vehicles]out of the streets and we will get a lot of things to reduce the impact on the community,” Cunningham said.
He added: “Do I promise that it won’t be 100% without any impact?
Cunningham said the plan will be reviewed and has the potential to change entry into the Street Country Music Festival (scheduled April 25-27 at the same location) if it “does not meet the standards we need.”
Council members criticize “unacceptable” traffic problems, lack of bathrooms
Traffic issues have caused special anger from MP Kathleen Fitzpatrick, who lives near the Imperial Polo Club. (The festival venue is located in Indiana, but on the southern and western borders La Quinta.)
“I lived there, I lived for 19 years,” Fitzpatrick said at the meeting. “Thursday is unacceptable.”
“It’s unacceptable because I found that all of these people were invited into our community and then there was no place to use the facilities for the restroom, no place to get water,” she added. “It’s totally awkward.”
Fitzpatrick said she heard from residents in her area “call me and tell me — what I’ve seen — people are being wasted on the side of the street by human beings who are forced to use the toilet.”
“How do you reconcile this in our city?” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s one thing to say we have a great festival () We’re the leader in the field. But it’s another thing to say we’re really not about the rubbish in La Quinta City because that’s what it looks like.”
Cunningham replied that festival organizers were very concerned about the impact of Coachella on the surrounding communities.
Mayor Pro Tem Deborah McGarrey asked Cunningham how to share traffic updates with festival audiences before arriving, noting that traffic along 54 Avenue was still backed up around 9 p.m. last Thursday.
Mayor Linda Evans said traffic seemed to be smoother for the rest of the weekend, pointing to the 2018 “wind box” when strong winds delayed the opening of the campground, an example of obstacles overcome in the past.
“I think the experience went very well for a few years and then something happened,” Evans said. “This year, it’s an increase in people who are doing well in the campground area, so it’s a new resilience that people are not used to, and combines situations, concerns and issues that happen.”
More: 7 Coachella’s 2025 Weekend Most Memorable Moments 1
Tom Coulter covers the city of Palm Desert, La Quinta, Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells. Contact him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared in Palm Springs Desert Sun: Coachella organizers publish public apology for weekend 1 camping delay
