Ever since its initial postponement last spring, Coachella has stayed awfully quiet about its eventual lineup. Frank Ocean, Rage Against the Machine and Travis Scott were initially announced for the April 2020 event, but festival promoter Goldenvoice never publicly commented about the status of the lineup after the Indio fest’s numerous postponements (it’s since been rescheduled to April 2022).
Now, though, we finally have some updates thanks to a profile on cofounder Paul Tollett in the L.A. Times. Rage Against the Machine, Travis Scott and a third unannounced headliner will top the 2022 lineup. Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat will also carry over from the never-staged 2020 lineup, though they’ll be higher up on the bill for this upcoming edition of the fest.
But the biggest news by far is that Frank Ocean won’t be available for the 2022 festival and will instead perform in 2023.
“I’m just trying to be as fair as I can to artists and to the fans to make sure that eventually they get to see everyone that we talked about,” Tollett told the L.A. Times.
Coachella typically stays pretty tight-lipped about its lineup until about three months before the April event. But Tollett wanted to offer some reassurance given all of the changes and uncertainty since last spring. Ocean joins one other very notable exception among early Coachella teases: When Beyoncé announced her pregnancy in 2017, and the subsequent cancelation of her Coachella slot that year, she also announced that she’d perform in 2018 instead.
It’s also not the first time Ocean and a Goldenvoice-produced festival have run into some scheduling issues. The singer called off a headlining slot at FYF just days before the 2015 event (he was replaced with Kanye West). But he eventually returned for what turned out to be that fest’s final iteration in 2017, with Brad Pitt and Spike Jonze in tow.
The rest of the interview with Tollett is worth a read: He reflects on halting production on the spring 2020 event, getting all of the artists rescheduled for the fall, the eventual extended event shutdown, his thoughts on vaccination verification for Goldenvoice festivals (“I just don’t know”), touring Coachella with Bill Gates, and his concern over rising ticket prices in the industry (with no mention of the fact that a general admission ticket to Coachella now costs $500).
Coachella will take place April 15–17 and April 22–24, 2022 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio. Presale tickets are currently sold out.
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