Billie Eilish is set to replace Travis Scott as one of the headliners of the Coachella festival.
Billie Eilish will join Kanye West as one of three main acts for the six-day event. Swedish House Mafia is also set to perform, though it is unclear if they will headline as the third act.
Following the events of Astroworld tragedy in November, where ten people died, Scott has either pulled out or been dropped from a number of public events. While it was announced that he, along with Frank Ocean and Rage Against the Machine, would headline the 21st installment of Coachella as early as January 2020, the festival was indefinitely postponed four times due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ocean has subsequently moved his performance to 2023, while reps for Scott have reportedly been fighting to keep his slot. Insiders say that Scott’s longtime agent, Cara Lewis of the Cara Lewis Group, even offered to forgo Scott’s performance fee entirely.
Despite the offer, a petition with 60,000 signatures requesting Scott to be removed from the lineup has ultimately led the festival to go on without him.
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is the biggest festival held in North America, typically hosting more than 100,000 festivalgoers each year. It began in 1999 at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, California and has gone on to become an iconic scene for music, fashion, and culture.
This year’s festival was originally planned for April 2020, but then moved to October 2020, then to April 2021, and lastly October of the same year. Its official dates for 2022 are now April 15-17 and April 22-24. Though amidst the Omicron surge and postponement of the 2022 Grammys, many are unsure if Coachella will proceed as scheduled.
As of now, the 21st Coachella has already sold out 125,000 tickets. Other performers have yet to be announced.
Art Daniella Sison
