McCartney's Coachella Over Run Could Result In Fine

• 27th Apr 2009

Paul McCartney may have cost organisers of the Coachella Festival $54,000 by overrunning. Macca headlined the Californian festival earlier this month, and played for nearly an hour more than planned.

Which is all well and good for the audience, but it took the event 54 minutes past the curfew enforced by local authorities, and in theory the event could be fined $1000 for every minute they go past the shut down time stated in the festival's licence.

Add in the fact that previous day, The Killers and The Cure also overran, by 30 and 33 minutes respectively, and promoters Goldenvoice could be facing a substantial bill.

The curfew is in force to placate local residents who have previously complained about the late night noise that comes from the festival site. A police spokesman, Ben Guitron, has confirmed to reporters that all three headline sets ran past the curfew, though says that it's for the local authority and not the police department to decide whether fines should be enforced.