On April 25-27, the StageCoach Country Music Festival held its annual event in Indio, California to celebrate a strong emphasis on western culture by inviting artists from all over the country to spread their influence. These artists include Abby Anderson, the Backstreet Boys, 49 Winchester, and so much more.
The main attraction that managed to pull country-lovers towards this festival was the live music being performed by a series of popular artists who thrive in the western genre in stages present at Stagecoach. While the tickets sold out pretty fast, there was a live stream to any who weren’t able to go in person, located on Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Music’s Twitch channel. The live stream is still available for anyone to see even after the event.
“I enjoyed Stagecoach, it was so much fun. It brought [the country genre] to a whole new level… for others to dive into the experience,” Michael Iniquiz ‘27 said.
There were multiple activities for the physical attendees to partake in as well, such as grabbing food at Guy Fieri’s Stagecoach, capturing their favorite moments in photo booths, going shopping for their favorite artist’s merchandise and other Western-inspired accessories, and even grant themselves a personal country experience of watching performers ride horses and horseplay all weekend at Compton Cowboys Corral.
“It was very interesting to see the cowboys do all kinds of tricks while horse riding at Compton Cowboys Corral and enlightened me to go to similar events in the future. It was also a good opportunity to hang out and experience more with my friends and hopefully more people I know would like to attend as well,” Omar Gonzalez ‘28 said.
Originating in 2007 in the same place, and being postponed in 2020-2021, Stagecoach has made a major comeback. Estimated to have a crowd of 80,000 per day this year compared to the previous record of 75,000 attendees per day, according to The Desert Sun.
“Stagecoach deserved its comeback because of all the fun activities and amazing music they had available for everyone from all the musicians and singers.” Elizabeth Cervantez ‘28 said, “especially with the fact they live streamed it as well in order to make it available for just about anyone is outstanding as well.”
