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US: Coachella faces new legal fight

By  |  October 30, 2018

Last April, Soul’d Productions, a Portland-based music festival promoter, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Coachella and AEG/Goldenvoice.

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    The promoter claimed that Coachella and AEG aimed to “monopolize the market for popular music” in the West Coast. Specifically, Soul’d Out had problems with Coachella’s “radius clause.” A federal judge dismissed the antitrust suit filed by an Oregon festival promoter against AEG and Coachella, but declined to rule on several other key elements of the lawsuit, including unfair competition claims.

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    Now, Soul’d Productions has refiled its lawsuit with key changes. In the refiled lawsuit, the Oregon promoter claims Coachella’s restrictive clause harms the Pacific Northwest concert promoter market. AEG also negotiates the California festivals’ radius clause with other promoters. Nika Aldrich, attorney for Soul’d Production, claims this constitutes an “unlawful horizontal restraint on trade.”

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