Los Angeles (AFP)
The famous Coachella music festival will not be able to be held as planned in April due to the Covid-19 pandemic, local health authorities decided on Friday, who had already canceled the 2020 edition for the same reasons.
Cameron Kaiser, public health official for California Riverside County, cited "the resurgence of Covid-19 both in Riverside County and around the world" to justify his decision.
The festival attracts "hundreds of thousands of spectators from many countries, some of whom are disproportionately affected by the global Covid-19 epidemic", he explains in his order.
The organizers had not yet announced on Friday whether they would propose new dates for the 2021 edition.
Coachella is usually held every year on two weekends in April in the California desert in Indio.
In April 2020, the festival had already been postponed to October because of the pandemic.
And the authorities had again decided last summer to postpone it to April 2021.
The 2020 edition had initially announced as headliners Rage Against the Machine, Travis Scott and Frank Ocean, but successive postponements could call into question the festival's program.
According to a report, the local economy of the Coachella Valley has suffered a shortfall of up to $ 700 million due to cancellations of the festival.
© 2021 AFP