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Coachella Stagehand Falls To His Death While Setting Up Music Festival

By Helen Storms
Published on: 12:15 PST, Apr 6, 2019

Fans are currently one week away until the kickoff of the Coachella music festival, one of the largest and most highly acclaimed music festivals in the nation. Last year over 96,000 guests attended the festival held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, and even more are likely to stop by this year.

With such an incredible amount of people and obviously a lot of partying, some mishaps are bound to happen. However, the music festival has been fairly accident-free throughout its two decade run. An exception was in 2014 when one person died of an apparent drug overdose. This year, the music festival hasn’t even begun yet and there has already been a fatality, according to TMZ.

The accident occurred Saturday morning when a stagehand for Coachella was putting the finishing touches on one of the many stages at the venue. The man reportedly climbed up the stage scaffolding where he was doing some rigging. While it has not yet been released exactly how he fell, eyewitnesses from the ground said he fell nearly 60 feet. He was not wearing a harness at the time of his fall and thus had no safety gear to catch him.

A 911 call was placed at approximately 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning regarding an industrial accident on the Coachella concert grounds. Emergency personnel arrived shortly after but discovered the stagehand dead on the scene. Goldenvoice, the organization that puts on the festival each year, has yet to comment upon the tragic incident.

Coachella is a two weekend event that will begin on Friday, April 12, and conclude on Sunday, April 21. More than 150 musical artists will be in attendance, including big name headliners such as Ariana Grande, Childish Gambino, and Tame Impala. There will be hundreds of food vendors located on the concert grounds, as well as games and the infamous Coachella ferris wheel.

At only 25-years-old, Grande will be making Coachella history at this year’s concert as the youngest headliner ever, according to Billboard. She’ll also be the fourth female to ever headline at the event. Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Björk came before her.

Grande’s manager, Scooter Braun, expressed his excitement for the young star on Instagram along with a photo of the festival’s lineup.

“4th female to ever headline and the youngest headliner in the history of the festival! Congrats Ari,” he wrote.

Grande responded that she was both “humbled and exited” to be given such a remarkable opportunity.

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