As a result of the court battle with promoters of the Oregon music festival Soul’d Out, details about the controversial radius clause Coachella performers must follow have been made public. The Southern California festival is being accused of engaging in anti-competitive business practices. According to court documents obtained by Amplify, artists signed on to play Coachella cannot perform at any North American festival from December 15 to May 1. Coachella is usually held over two weekends in April.
Soul’d Out’s original civil complaint contained an error, and was amended on May 15 with more information about the restrictions Coachella places on its acts. Per Amplify:
Artists are also barred from playing any hard ticket concerts in Southern California during that same time period.
Artists can’t “advertise, publicize or leak” performances at competing festivals in California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington or Arizona or headliner concerts in SoCal that take place after May 1 until after May 7.
Artists can’t announce festival appearances for the other 45 states in North America until after the Coachella lineup is announced in January, with exceptions made for Austin’s South by Southwest, Ultra Miami and the AEG-backed New Orleans Jazziest.
Artists must also wait for the January announcement before publicizing tour stops in California, Arizona, Washington and Oregon, with an exception made for Las Vegas casinos, but not Las Vegas festivals.
Attorneys for AEG, Coachella’s promotion company, defend the restrictions, saying “the entire purpose of the radius clause is to protect AEG from competitors unfairly free-riding on its creative choices in selecting its artist lineup.”
Lawyers for AEG are upset with the additional radius clause terms going public, saying that they are part of the confidential settlements reached with Soul’d Out’s promoters.
In April, Soul’d Out attorney Nicholas F. Aldrich filed suit a mere days before Coachella kicked off Weekend 1. Aldrich said that the indie promoters had tried to book Tank and the Bangas, SZA and Daniel Caesar for their Portland event, but they were denied because of Coachella’s 2018 radius clause. This year’s Coachella festival took place April 13-15 and 20-22, while Soul’d Out festival took place April 18-22.
Aldrich says in his complaint that many artists have turned down participating in Soul’d Out, citing the radius clause as the sole reason for doing so.
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