The temporary evacuation of thousands of people from the Stagecoach country music festival amid high winds provided new insight into how the festival organizers and public safety officials react in a crisis.
It was the first such evacuation in the history of Stagecoach, which has been held since 2007. The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which began in 1999, likewise has never had a full evacuation.
Indio had seen wind gusts over 40 mph on Saturday, April 25, before all attendees at the Empire Polo Club were told to evacuate just after 7:45 p.m. The festival was reopened about an hour later after winds died down. Although the evacuation ended up being short-lived, it left many fans unsure where to go and what to do next.
Festival promoter Goldenvoice made the final call on evacuation, but did so after consulting and informing Indio police, who were the lead public safety agency on site, said police spokesperson Sgt. Abe Plata. The evacuation was then announced over loudspeakers on festival grounds, with messages on large screens around the festival and with a push alert that went to people who’d downloaded the Stagecoach phone app.
Jason Euler, a concert-industry veteran who was not at Stagecoach, said Goldenvoice made the right decision to evacuate but should have done a better job communicating with fans and rank-and-file people working at the festival. Many were left unsure whether the concert would resume or was called off for the night.
The phone app push alert that fans got read: “Due to severe weather, please exit the event site and move to your vehicles or protected areas outside of the event site for safety. Stay tuned for updates.” The messages on giant screens on the grounds said the event was “postponed until further notice.”
Questions about communication
Euler, a partner at a company that managed special effects for performances within the Coachella and Stagecoach festivals, was not involved in the Stagecoach evacuation. But he said that in his experience, “any major festival worth its salt has a meteorologist on retainer” who monitors weather conditions and provides regular forecast updates.
“We’ll have that for any of our major festivals. Usually, you look at all your stage builds and during the engineering process, they’re all going to have a wind rating. You know they can sustain winds up to x amount of miles an hour. But ultimately I know in most cases, once you get above 35 to 40 miles per hour, that’s when you’re looking at an evacuation, shutdown, or moving everyone to safety,” said Euler, who also serves as a site operations leader and director of sales and partnerships for Relentless Beats, one of the largest independent concert and festival promoters in the United States.
Euler said security and other event staff who were at the exits as fans evacuated the festival didn’t have enough information on what to tell them.
“There should have been an all-radio call going out from their head of command all the way down through the site advising all the staff, security, and all those directors for each department of what to say to fans who are near the exits,” he said. “There should be guards saying, ‘Hey, there’s no reentry.’ Or, ‘Hey, just hang out here. There will be a reentry moment coming up.’”
Some Stagecoach fans demand refunds
Some attendees drove their cars out of the parking lots or got in shuttle vans that headed out, and they were unable to get back in when the festival reopened an hour later and headliner Lainey Wilson performed. The classic rock band Journey, who were scheduled to perform on the new Mustang stage during the hour of the evacuation, did not perform and were not rescheduled for Sunday.
Journey guitarist Neil Schon apologized to fans on Monday on his social media page and said, “The decision to evacuate and cancel the show was not made by us. It was issued and communicated to our team during the emergency situation.”
Many fans have commented on Goldenvoice’s social media, demanding partial refunds, especially those who couldn’t get back in to see the rest of the show. But Euler said that’s unlikely given the fine print that concert and event promoters put on tickets.
“They put verbiage in there when people are purchasing their tickets to protect them in the event of a disaster or some sort of extreme weather condition,” Euler said. “Many groups are protected in that regard where they don’t have to give the refunds. Many groups will lean into that because that just is the case. It was not safe to perform, they couldn’t put anyone at harm or at risk just for them want to to see an act they prefer or enjoy. So more times than not, I would say refunds aren’t as typical if here is kind of an act of God, or a weather situation.”
‘Trust the experts’
Euler said every event has a slightly different emergency plan. He described one of Relentless Beats’ festivals having to do a wind evacuation, but said organizers allowed fans to take shelter in a large barn that held up to 8,000 people.
“Usually, we’re putting up verbiage on the LED walls or the screens around the site. We’re very active on socials. If there’s an app for the festivals, you’re sending out push notifications giving those updates. (Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival) is a great example. They deal with a lot of wind, lightning and weather year after year. If you’re on the Bonnaroo app, they’re on top of it with up-to-the-minute weather updates and communicating with the audience,” Euler said.
Plata, the Indio police spokesperson, said the evacuation went smoothly from a law-enforcement perspective, in part because of the time of night. By 7:45 p.m., when the evacuation was ordered, the venue had been configured for the mass movement of people that follows the closure of the festival at around midnight. Likewise, surrounding streets had been readied for one-way outbound traffic given the traffic generated when thousands of fans depart in a short period.
“Instead of it being past midnight, it was earlier than expected,” Plata said of the exodus.
Although the police department was on hand to consult about public safety, Plata said they ultimately deferred to the concert promoter’s judgment on the evacuation.
“Goldenvoice is the expert, so we’re going to trust the experts,” Plata said.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Stagecoach evacuation a first for big valley festivals. How did it go?
Reporting by Brian Blueskye and Sam Morgen, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
