Person to person

Anticipation ran through the blood of music lovers for the past four months since the Coachella lineup was announced. I saw myself dancing through the grass with an occasional cartwheel, but this was not my experience. There were too many people.
I don't say this because I didn't get front row spots for certain bands. I think it is great that so many people have come together to enjoy music. However, the overall music experience is affected negatively when a majority of the time is spent trying to find a pathway to make it from one stage to the other. When you finally do make it to your final destination, you find that the tent is already packed with people and spilling out the sides. The entire festival ground was a crowd. There was never a break from trying to claim your space.
Last year, the average attendance per day was 60,000 people. This year there were about 75,000 attendees each day. The increase in people only added to the pocketbooks of Goldenvoice. I'm all for members of the music industry making money and succeeding, but when it is at the cost of the overall music festival experience, that is a problem.
The reasoning behind Golenvoice's decision to only sell three-day passes was to provide the full festival experience. In my opinion, the festival experience does not include an overcrowded atmosphere. There is a point where it becomes exhausting trying to make your way through a crowd when the nearest stage is 200 yards away. Shoulder to shoulder shuffling is meant for the areas by the stage, not the open field that is meant for walking.
The simple reason for this problem is Goldenvoice screwed up on their judgement. If they wanted to make more money and bring more people to the event, they should have expanded the the layout. To think that adding 15,000 bodies to the same layout as the previous year is a good idea is poor planning. It's not the same idea as a sell-out crowd in  a baseball stadium where there are assigned boundaries. Just because the fire marshall approved 75,000 people in this confined area doesn't mean squeeze as many people in and herd them around like cattle.
I'm all for fighting for a spot in front of the stage and embracing the close quarters. When my memories of a festival experience are mixed with images of dodging bodies  all the way to the parking lot, only to sit there for three hours each night due to traffic, I have to wonder if Goldenvoice will make some drastic changes. Or will they choose to be cheap and rent the same amount of space for next year? The bottom line is we are there for the music and will come back no matter what, and they know that.