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On June 10, Coachella’s exclusivity terms for performers got a rare public airing. Portland, Oregon’s Soul’d Out Music Festival—which is waging an antitrust lawsuit against Coachella and its parent companies Goldenvoice and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG)—entered into federal evidence an email from AEG’s legal team that outlines Coachella’s radius clause. Most notably, their 2018 policy restricted acts from playing other North American festivals from December 15, 2017 to May 1, 2018. Additionally, performers were asked not to play shows in seven Southern California counties during that same time span. And artists who signed the clause also agreed to announcing Coachella as their first festival appearance of the year, among other announcement-related restrictions.
This week, as the fine print finally hit the press, the restrictions appeared severe enough to incite another round of outrage towards Coachella, whose co-owner Philip Anschutz has donated to anti-LGBTQ charities over the years. It’s easy to be mad at Coachella, but it’s worth understanding that radius clauses are not only ubiquitous in the festival industry, they’re also not ironclad. As a booking agent and lawyer familiar with such contract negotiations tell me, often there are ways to navigate around radius clauses. Coachella’s demand for exclusivity, in light of an increasingly ubiquitous and overflowing slate of festival lineups, centers more around having big-name headliners ahead of competitors.
One booking agent, who asked not to be named, characterized Coachella’s terms as “pretty standard,” considering the international platform that the festival provides. “Plus, everything is negotiable,” the agent added. Not everybody who plays a particular festival ends up agreeing to abide by its radius clause, especially the emerging artists who can least afford to sit silent. And practically speaking, the agent adds, Coachella really does mark the official start of festival season in North America. “I’m sure that festival in Oregon is affected by it, but that can also be a polite way of passing on the festival under the guise of Coachella’s radius clause,” the agent says. “Maybe, maybe not, but I don’t know how many bands this has truly affected.”
Soul’d Out claims that Coachella’s radius clause violates federal antitrust law. According to the lawsuit, “numerous” artists turned down offers to play Soul’d Out, which took place during the second weekend of Coachella (April 18 to 22), for no other reason than the radius clause. But it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise that a near-headliner like SZA, as the lawsuit claims, cited the radius clause as when turning down a Soul’d Out performance. As it turned out, she extended her Coachella stay that weekend until Sunday, two days after her own set, to take the stage with Cardi B—clearly the more high-profile career move. It’s harder to understand why Coachella would need to restrict a lesser-known group like New Orleans soul-funk storytellers Tank and the Bangas, who also allegedly passed on Soul’d Out only because of the radius clause.
Still, for this one festival, this one year, Coachella’s exclusivity terms weren’t absolute. Noname performed at both Soul’d Out and Coachella. Japanese Breakfast and Russ clearly got around the radius clause as well, respectively playing San Francisco’s Noise Pop and Chandler, Arizona's Pot of Gold Fest in the months leading up to their performances out in Indio. Even SZA herself was able to headline another festival this spring, Buku in New Orleans. A music lawyer tells me that every time a client has had a conflict with a radius clause, they’ve been able to work out permission to play the other show, though that may vary for more popular artists and biggest fests. Larger acts have a vested interest in the desert event’s bountiful payouts—from $3 million to $4 million for headliners last year, according to The New Yorker—while up-and-comers might overlook reported low-end fees of “$10,000 or less” in hopes of earning more with a Coachella set on their resumes.
Then again, there’s no rule that says Coachella’s radius clause needs to extend for nearly six months and across an entire continent. Pitchfork Music Festival’s radius clause typically covers festival performances within two weeks before or after the Chicago event in Illinois or any seven nearby states, or any appearances near Cook County from 120 days before to 30 days after the festival. As of 2014, Bonnaroo’s radius clause reportedly blocked artists from playing in a 300-mile area for four months, though exceptions were made for Phosphorescent and Grouplove to play in Nashville. Four years before that, Lollapalooza came under fire for its own 300-mile clause, which bands often appeared to violate—including acts as big as MGMT and Spoon—at their own risk.
A radius clause as sweeping as Coachella’s surely puts a damper on anyone planning a festival in the first months of the year. It’s a time period that, for obvious reasons of climate, isn’t popular for outdoor events coast to coast but does include fests like Florida’s Okeechobee (the 2018 lineup included Snoop Dogg, Arcade Fire, Bassnectar, Halsey, Travis Scott), San Francisco’s Noise Pop (Built to Spill, G Perico, Jay Som, Girlpool), and Houston’s inaugural In Bloom (Beck, Queens of the Stone Age, Lil Uzi Vert, 21 Savage). Coachella’s contract language is confusing around larger early-year festivals, specifically SXSW in Austin, Miami’s Ultra, and New Orleans Jazz Fest: There’s an exemption allowing artists to “announce” their performances there, but the document disclosed by Soul’d Out doesn’t specifically say they’d be allowed to perform there.
“Radius clauses are common in the concert business where promoters take great risk and spend huge sums to produce marquee festivals, tours and other shows,” an AEG rep told Variety in response to the lawsuit. “The producers of Coachella will vigorously defend against this lawsuit, which calls into question a long-standing industry practice that is crucial to our ability to continue offering fans the unrivaled experience for which Coachella has become known.”
On June 15, AEG lawyers asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit. Among other arguments, Goldenvoice’s parent company contended that Soul’d Out failed to “plausibly allege essential elements of an antitrust claim.” The lawyers also pointed out that Coachella generally sells out before the lineup is even announced. Rival festivals may want to bet on artists and audiences who’d rather have experiences where the music onstage is something people purposely paid to see.
