Update, April 16, 8:21 a.m.: Jana Howard, one of the employees at the Coachella merch tent, explained that the Goldenvoice's decision to mark up hoodie prices as people were lining up to buy them was a misunderstanding.”When we first put them up, we were selling them for the wrong price. We had marked them all at $45. Then we got a call from management saying we were selling them at the wrong price, and they had to be marked up. So the people who bought them for $45 just got super lucky. We kind of feel bad about that but we're also losing money on it.”
Brooklyn resident Randy Locklair, 32, said that reasoning wasn't relayed to the crowd when the incident happened at around 5 p.m. on Friday. In a phone interview, he explained that he, along with a crowd of people about 7-foot deep, were in line to buy mostly hoodies as it was just starting to get cold. “All of a sudden there was murmuring, and then booing. Then we looked up and–just like in the picture–people were changing prices right in front of us. I don't have a problem paying $55 for a hoodie, but I have a problem with people doing it in front of us, on a night when it's cold and rainy like that. Obviously they did it because everyone needed a sweatshirt,” he said. Locklair said the merch tent staff said they were told to do it by someone from above, but there was no other explanation. He added, “Why else would you do it except for supply and demand? And why raise the prices of just the sweatshirts?”
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Original post, April 14, 2012, 11:13 a.m: For the first time in its 13 years, the weather was the biggest thing on everyone's minds at Coachella. The word “Coldchella”
was tossed around by people who acted like they were the first person
to think of the term. It didn't seem like anyone looked at the weather
report, either, judging by the skimpy dresses and lack of coverage on
the field. One girl in a bikini wailed, “Why is it raiiiiining?” Girlie,
it's because the weather report promised a high of 73 degrees, a low of
54, with 50 percent chance of rain.
Maybe Goldenvoice should've been more prescient, as well. Attendees
trooped over to the merch table to buy hoodies, but as Weekly writer Niyaz Pirani said
on his Facebook page, “They're changing the prices of hoodies from 45
to 55. People are booing. What bullshit. Because its rainy and cold.” We're waiting for a statement from Goldenvoice to see if this is true; stay tuned.
