As it turns out, it wasn’t until yesterday that the rest of the music blogosphere realized the 10th annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is a mere four months away, and with its lineup announcement imminent, it’s about time to start discussing all the current rumors relating to the California based event. At least, that’s what happened once LAist linked to our Coachella Outlook page and sheer madness soon ensued.
Since its inception a little over a year ago, we have viewed the Festival Outlook as a database where lineups for all major U.S., Canadian, and European music festivals can be found in one central location. This also includes independent confirmations and rumors leading up to an official announcement, as what can currently be found on our pages for Coachella, Bonnaroo, and countless other festivals.
Because there seems to be somewhat of a misconception on what this actually means, let’s try to explain it. We only “officially confirm” a band if their appearance has been confirmed via a MySpace page, interview, press release, message board posting, or some other means outside of an actual festival announcement. For an act to don the title of “officially confirmed,” we must be 100% confident in this information and the in the sources that provided it.
If there’s any room for doubt, then the act will generally fall under the “rumored” category. The same is the case for acts that haven’t independently confirmed their appearance, but have made it rather obvious, such as a void in tour dates (see: Morrissey and Coachella). That being said, we don’t include just any act as “rumored.” If their appearance just doesn’t make sense, or lacks any real credible evidence, we do not include them on either list.
Now, I know there’s been some questions on how an act can be “officially confirmed” just because a website says it is. That’s fair and we respect their opinions. However, I would answer that by saying we spend an obscene amount of hours each and every day creating and updating the pages on our Festival Outlook so that they’re as informational as they are compelling. Will every “officially confirmed” act for every of the hundred music festivals we cover turn out to be on when their respective lineups are announced? Probably not, but if our past history says anything – every act we “officially confirmed” for Langerado ’09 currently appears on the official lineup – and a great deal of it will be.
Take it for what it’s worth, but Consequence of Sound fully stands by any and all information appearing on the site.
