Once a year, Indio, CA residents must prepare for disaster: a torrential downpour of teenagers having the best time ever and musicians and port-a-potties probably having an experience they’re a little less enthusiastic about. Queens, NY has over 25 times the population of Indio, and thus a similar downpour might be less noticeable there. Regardless, it seems this could be what’s in store for the borough. For, per the NY Daily News , Coachella — as ominously as “Winter” on Game of Thrones — “could be coming.” Which is to say that its organizers — AEG — are looking to plant a similar concert in the NY area.
“Panorama” — as it’s at least currently being called — could happen as early as next June. The promoters of the California festival have been in talks with the city to use Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the former site of the World’s Fair. (One plus side, Gothamist suggests, is that it could bring more attention to the park, whose famous New York State pavilion is now pretty dilapidated.) This would allegedly be an event to rival the size of the 1964 World’s Fair, and would become the largest festival in the borough since then.
The NY Daily News also notes how soon after Governor’s Ball — which takes place on NY’s Randall’s Island — the “Panorama” date would fall. They worry that it’d pull artists who would have headlined Governor’s Ball, which is “run by one of the last independent promotion companies [Founders Entertainment] in the music industry.”
Tom Russell, a partner at Founders’, fears this isn’t a farfetched concern, telling the paper, “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.”