Coachella music festival has been cancelled again for 2021

The April dates of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and its companion Stagecoach country music festival have been cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to Riverside County Public Health Officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser.

"We look forward to when the events may return," Kaiser said via Twitter, although it was unclear whether later dates in 2021 may be scheduled.

The official order from the public health officer specifies "The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and the Stagecoach Country Music Festival currently scheduled for April 2021 are hereby cancelled," which would seem to leave open that possibility that they could be rescheduled for later in the year.

Coachella 2020 was initially pushed to October, and then postponed again to April 2021. No new dates were immediately announced.

The move does not come as a surprise. While the fate of the entire 2021 festival season has been in question for months, there have been longstanding rumours for several months that Coachella and Stagecoach would be moved to October of this year, due not only to the ongoing pandemic but the recent dramatic spike in cases in Southern California. A look at the Coachella website earlier this week revealed that no date for the 2021 festival was listed at all.

Last week, the Glastonbury Festival, England's largest music gathering, was canceled for a second consecutive year as the virus spiked anew in the country.