Coachella Organizers Address Complaints of 12-Hour Delays at Festival’s Opening Weekend

Coachella’s recent return to the desert didn’t go exactly as planned.

In fact, it was a crowded jam. After attendees of the festival’s first weekend—which featured performers like Lady Gaga, Megan Thee Stallion and Charli XCX—voiced their frustration about waiting in hours-long traffic while making their way to the California venue, the event’s organizer Goldenvoice is providing answers for the mishap.

“Every year, we typically have a lull between one o’clock and six o’clock in the evening where it just dies down,” the company’s senior vice president of public safety, George Cunningham, explained during a La Quinta City Council meeting on April 15. “We didn’t have that [this year.]”

The traffic chaos started in the early hours of April 11, which is also the weekend-long festival’s first day. At the time, many campers detailed their long delay trying to reach the Empire Polo Club—the venue that hosts Coachella—on social media. Specifically, a TikTok user named Liss shared that she and her friends had been waiting in their car for “nearly 10 hours” after showing up at the camping ground at 3 a.m. in the hopes of beating the rush.