Chapter 13 of 15 · about 11 min read · updated October 2026

13The money and Indio

In 2024, the city of Indio collected $2,000,206.13 from three weekends of festivals on the polo field.⁵⁵ Seven years earlier, the festival on that field grossed $114.6M on its own.³⁸ Those are the two hardest numbers in this chapter. Almost everything else is an estimate, and it matters who made it.

What the festival grosses

A gross is total ticket sales, the figure Billboard Boxscore and Pollstar chart from box office reports. For Coachella those charts run through 2017, and the figures climb every year:

2017 made Coachella the first recurring festival to gross over $100M.³⁹ Then the numbers stop. This project found no Boxscore or Pollstar gross for any year after 2017. By 2019, The Ringer could say only that the yearly gross was "well over $100 million."³ Nobody outside the company has published a better number since.

The years before 2013 are murkier. Wikipedia's table, which cites Boxscore, puts 2011 at about $25M and the first two-weekend year, 2012, at about $47.3M.¹⁸ If those hold, the second weekend nearly doubled the gross in a single year, which is roughly what you'd expect from selling the same show twice.

Selling the same show twice

The biggest financial decision in the festival's history was announced in a sentence: from 2012, a second weekend, same lineup, separate tickets.³² Tollett's reasons, as he gave them in 2011, were about scarcity. Demand was already past what the 2011 site could hold. Adding about 40,000 people a day would "ruin the show." And resellers were getting $500-600 for passes, which he called unfair.³²

So instead of a bigger festival, he cloned it. The same artists play the same stages a week apart. Every gross in the panel above is two weekends' worth.

Goldenvoice did the same sum again in October 2016 with Desert Trip, six classic-rock acts over two weekends on the same field. Tollett told The New York Times it would gross "approximately $160 million for the two weekends."¹¹⁵ Stereogum set that against $84M for Coachella, which is the 2015 figure; Pollstar's chart has Coachella 2016 at $94.2M.¹¹⁴³⁷ Either way, two weekends of the Stones, Dylan and McCartney out-grossed the festival. Stereogum put the cost of staging it at about $100M.¹¹⁴

Some sense of where the money goes came from Paul Tollett himself. He told The New Yorker in 2017 that each of that year's headliners was paid $3-4M, and that acts at the bottom of the bill got a little under $10,000.⁴¹ For 2026, Rolling Stone reported that Justin Bieber's first headline set paid "north of $10 million." That figure came from one unnamed source.⁴⁴⁹

Who owns it

Goldenvoice runs Coachella. Goldenvoice is owned by AEG, the Anschutz Entertainment Group. AEG bought Goldenvoice in 2001.⁴⁵⁰ Wikipedia puts the price at $7 million; this project hasn't found that figure in the original reporting, so treat it as Wikipedia's.¹⁸ Coachella itself came later. Tollett sold AEG half of the festival in 2004, the year it first sold out.³

The Anschutz donations

In January 2017, The FADER reported what the Anschutz Foundation had given to. Between 2010 and 2013 it gave $190,000 combined to Alliance Defending Freedom, the National Christian Foundation and the Family Research Council, groups The FADER described as anti-LGBTQ.⁴⁵¹ In the 2016 election cycle, Philip and Nancy Anschutz gave $1,012,000 to Republican candidates and PACs, including $500,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund.⁴⁵¹

Anschutz called the claims that he is anti-LGBTQ "fake news." He said he and the foundation stopped giving to groups once they learned those groups backed anti-LGBTQ causes. He did not deny the donations.⁴⁵¹

Tollett, asked about it by The New Yorker that spring, did not defend the politics. He was blunt about the position he was in:

"I was offended. I run the festival, but it's rude to say that when you're a partner with someone."²⁰

The festival went ahead that April as planned, and grossed its record $114.6M.³⁸

Indio's cut: the standoff

In 2012, Indio was short of money. The city had just cut about $4M through layoffs and furloughs.⁶⁵ So the council looked at the biggest event in town and floated an admissions tax: 5-10% on any event over 2,500 people. Goldenvoice worked it out at about $36 a ticket, or $4-6M a year.⁶⁵

Tollett's answer was to threaten to leave. He said the 2013 festivals could be the last in Indio, that Goldenvoice would skip 2014 and find a new site for 2015.⁶⁵ He also listed what the festival already paid: more than $800,000 in ticket fees, sales tax on about $9M of food and drink, and more than $800,000 in hotel tax.⁶⁵

At the time, the city's per-ticket share was $2.33. That came to about $500,000 a year, in a city budget of about $49M.⁴⁵² Councilman Sam Torres had pushed for a 6% tax.

"I looked at these guys as a way to help us continue to maintain our city."⁴⁵²

The 2013 deal

The tax never passed. In April 2013 the council voted 4-0 for a new agreement instead, with Mayor Elaine Holmes abstaining over a property conflict.⁶⁶ The terms:

• Coachella and Stagecoach stay in Indio through at least 2030.
• The city's share rises from $2.33 to $5.01 a ticket, starting in 2014.
• The site can go from three festivals a year to five.⁶⁶⁴⁵³

NPR's summary was "$5 a ticket," or about a million dollars a year.⁴⁵⁴ The five-festival clause is the one that later made room for Desert Trip and Power Trip in October (see the next chapter).

In 2021 the deal was stretched to 2050. The council voted 3-1, with Holmes recusing because she owns property within 1,000 feet of the site.⁵⁶ Councilmember Glenn Miller made the case for it:

"Not one dollar comes out of the city of Indio's pocket."⁵⁶

The same year, Goldenvoice signed a lease with the Haagen family that runs to 2050 and gives it the polo club year-round, with room for two more large festivals a year.¹⁴⁴⁵⁵

Indio's cut: the 2024 numbers

For 2024, a city spokesperson gave KESQ the details. Indio counted 81,690 tickets for Coachella's first weekend, 80,148 for the second and 89,003 for Stagecoach, 250,841 in all. It collected $2,000,206.13, at a rate of "$2.658 per ticket/per day this fiscal year."⁵⁵

The city's arithmetic checks out exactly: 250,841 tickets, times three days, times $2.658, is $2,000,206. That works out to about $7.97 per three-day ticket. That is our arithmetic, not the city's. It is well above the $5.01 of the 2013 deal, and the public record found for this piece doesn't say how the rate got there or when it switched to a per-day basis. The amended agreements would.

Notice the order of those ticket counts. Stagecoach, the country festival the weekend after, sold more tickets than either Coachella weekend that year.⁵⁵

The city also gets paid when the music runs late. The curfew carries a $20,000 fine once a set goes five minutes over, then $1,000 a minute, and the money goes into Indio's general fund.⁷² For the first weekend of 2023, the city fined Goldenvoice $117,000.⁴⁵⁶

What none of these numbers say is what share of Indio's budget the festivals cover today. The 2013 figure, about $500,000 against $49M, is about 1%.⁴⁵² No current equivalent turned up.

The impact numbers, and who made them

Every spring, a big number goes around: what Coachella is "worth" to the valley. It has been $254M, $600M, $700M and $1.4B. Here is where each one came from.

• $254.4M (2012). An economic-impact analysis said Coachella brought that much to the region, with more than a third of it landing in Indio.⁴⁵³ Hypebot credits the analysis to Development Management Group, which put Indio's share at $89.2M.⁶⁶ NPR described a study putting the festival's Indio impact at more than $90M as "Goldenvoice-commissioned."⁴⁵⁴
• $1.4B (2016). A projection by Michael Bracken of Development Management Group, of Palm Desert, for all five Goldenvoice festivals that year, Desert Trip included. It put $805M in the Coachella Valley and about $212M in Indio, and was announced by the valley's tourism bureau and its economic partnership. NBC Los Angeles noted that Bracken's relationship with AEG and Goldenvoice was "undisclosed and unclear."⁴⁵⁷
• About $700M lost (2020). When the festivals were cancelled, the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership estimated the valley would lose about $700M.⁴⁵⁸
• About $600M (2024). NBC Palm Springs credited this one to the City of Indio. No study was named.⁴⁵⁹
• More than $700M a year (2026). Gov. Gavin Newsom's office said Coachella and Stagecoach together generate that, plus more than 10,000 temporary jobs.⁴⁶⁰ NBC Palm Springs added a figure of more than $100M a year in value to Indio.⁴⁶¹ Neither report named the study behind it.

None of these is an independent audit. Two come from the same consultant, at least one was paid for by the promoter, and the recent ones cite no method at all. They may all be roughly right. A valley that fills its hotels for three weekends running is clearly getting something. But the figures tell you more about who wanted to say a number than about the number.

The rooms

The clearest independent signal is the hotels. Expedia's data showed Coachella Valley hotels more than 90% full in April, the most expensive month of the year, with the average nightly rate climbing from $280 in April 2016 to $340 in April 2017.³⁸² "April always leads the entire year for Coachella Valley hotels," the report said.³⁸²

Short-term rentals are where the stories get wild. Homeowners and agents told NBC Palm Springs in 2026 that some luxury homes rent for more than $100,000 for a single weekend.³⁸³ That's anecdote, not data. Nobody published the bookings.

Who does the work

The festival's labor is a mix of stagehands, private security, temporary crews and, at night, farmworkers.

The overnight cleanup. In 2019, The Desert Sun's Rebecca Plevin followed grape workers who take overnight trash shifts at the polo grounds across all three April weekends. They finish around 3:30 a.m., after about eight hours in the vineyards the day before, and are paid minimum wage.⁴⁶² The reason more of them need the shifts is in the fields: the county counted about 1,000 fewer acres of grapes in 2017 than in 2013.⁴⁶² Enriqueta Magaña, a supervisor with 20 years in the vineyards and 10 at the festival, described the grounds the morning after as "a garbage dump."⁴⁶²

The Marines. In 2022, the San Francisco Standard reported that active-duty Marines, many from Camp Pendleton, had worked security shifts at Coachella for C.I. Security Specialists. In exchange, the company donated toward Marine Corps birthday-ball tickets. One Marine estimated that about half of roughly 200 of the company's officers there were volunteer Marines.⁴⁶³ The company said its personnel were all paid employees. State regulators said the Marines needed guard licenses, and two of those interviewed had none.⁴⁶³

The guards. By 2025, close to 1,000 Allied Universal guards were posted around the clock inside the gates, according to NBC Palm Springs.³⁷⁰

The build. In April 2019, lead rigger Christopher Griffin, 49, a 20-year Goldenvoice employee, died after falling from scaffolding during setup.⁴⁶⁴ In 2025, a former stagehand filed a wage suit against the companies behind the festival, alleging that hourly workers drive up to three hours to job sites without being paid for the travel.⁴⁶⁵

The guests, sometimes. In 2019, the rapper Belly sued Coachella, Goldenvoice and the security firm IPS, saying up to 25 guards attacked him during the Weeknd's set the year before.⁴⁶⁶

Selling it: the slump and the snap-back

For most of the 2010s, selling out was the easy part. Then it wasn't.

In 2024, the first weekend took nearly a month to sell out. About 80% of the year's 250,000 tickets had sold by opening day, and sales were down 14-17% from the year before, according to Billboard's sources.⁴⁵ The second weekend never fully sold out.⁶⁸

2025 was split. First-weekend general admission was gone by December 2024; second-weekend passes were "widely available."⁴⁶⁷ By April, second-weekend passes were reselling on StubHub for as little as $246, about half of face value.⁵²

Inside the fence, the prices kept their own pace. In 2025, Digital Music News priced three beers at $45 and two tacos at $16, and hotel packages from about $3,300 to more than $9,000.⁴⁶⁷

Goldenvoice's response was to move the calendar. The 2026 lineup came out on September 15, 2025, months earlier than usual.⁶⁸ Both weekends' GA and VIP passes sold out three days after going on sale.⁵³ The chapter on the lineup covers why an early poster changes the math.

The brands

Hypebeast dates the first big branded spaces on the grounds to Heineken in 2006, followed by H&M, American Express and Absolut.²⁸⁷ When the festival split into two weekends in 2012, the brand parties off-site mostly stuck to the first one.²⁸⁸

The off-site houses peaked and then thinned out. By 2019, Glossy reported Sephora, H&M, Urban Decay and others scaling back or dropping their VIP experiences. Conor Begley of Tribe Dynamics:

"There's definitely been a decline in activations, especially larger-branded experiences."²⁹²

The money moved inside the fence instead. SponsorUnited counted the 2026 on-site sponsors by number of branded assets: Heineken led with 23, then Aperol with 19 and Gap with 14. Heineken's cans lit up when they touched, Gap built a "Hoodie House," Pinterest ran a phone-free zone, and HBO screened the Euphoria season three premiere in the campgrounds. No sponsorship fees were disclosed.⁴⁶⁸

The company with the most riding on the festival doesn't sponsor it at all. Revolve, the online fashion retailer, "typically earns about 30% of its yearly revenue in the weeks around Coachella," Retail Brew reported in 2020, citing New York Times reporting. When the 2020 festival was postponed, Revolve's festival-style orders dropped to about a fifth of normal.²⁹¹ Revolve's own party, and what happened to it, is in the next chapter.

Still open

• The gross after 2017. If you have a Boxscore or Pollstar figure for any Coachella since, we'd like to see it.
• How $5.01 became $2.658 a day. The amended Indio agreements would show when the rate changed and why.
• Indio's share now. What fraction of the city's general fund the festivals cover in a current budget.
• An independent impact study. One that isn't the promoter's, the city's or the tourism bureau's.