Governors Ball Organizers Have Started a Petition to Veto Coachella in NYC

Organizers of New York’s ever-popular Governors Ball festival have started a petition to stop the people behind Coachella from taking over its territory.

The producers of Coachella are currently looking into holding a 2016 festival in Queens that would possibly be called Panorama. The event could also potentially overshadow Governors Ball.

Via Fader, a petition on Change.org is asking people to support Governors Ball by convincing Mayor’s De Blasio’s office to reject the Coachella spinoff festival’s plan to—particularly with its timing—step on Gov Ball’s muddy toes.

The petition states that Governors Ball’s “future is in jeopardy”:

As reported in The Daily News and multiple industry news outlets, AEG is lobbying the Mayor’s Office and other city agencies for approval of a major festival in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens two weeks after Governors Ball. The timing of this proposed event is an aggressive, greedy attempt by AEG to push a small independent company of born and bred New Yorkers out of business and out of the market.

Surely New Yorkers can handle two cool festivals? Maybe not—the subway system definitely can’t. The assumption is that NYC’s music lovers would likely only pay for one or the other, which itself depends on an assumption that the Panorama festival would be branded similarly, and if the bookings would cross over.

We already know Governor’s Ball has gotten bigger names year by year since 2011 to complement the independent acts. The 2015 lineup included Drake and Florence and the Machine, along with acts like MØ and Rae Sremmurd.

Governors Ball rep Tom Russell previously told The Daily News, “The timing of this corporate-run festival would threaten our ability as a small business to continue putting on the kind of event that has showcased the best artists, created hundreds of local jobs and put millions of dollars back into the city’s economy.”