157 Arrested at the 2015 Stagecoach Festival
The word from Indio, California is that 2015’s installment of the Stagecoach Festival was a big success, and many of the patrons and artists who attended the gathering raved about their time in the desert. But similar to previous years of Stagecoach, numerous arrests were necessary by local law enforcement.
A total of 157 arrests were made by the Indio Police Department according to Sergeant Dan Marshall, down from 177 made in 2014. The majority of the arrests stemmed from incidents involving alcohol.
Of the arrests, 1 was made for simple battery, 1 for sexual battery, 1 for felony vandalism, and the rest for alcohol violations. Texas country artist Jason Eady also had his wallet stolen from the green room on Sunday night of the festival. The perpetrator made unauthorized transactions on his debit card, and Eady missed his return flight to deal with the issue.
High arrest numbers are nothing new at the Southern California music festival, or its corresponding Coachella Festival held the weekend before. 2013 saw a drop in arrests at Stagecoach to 124, but 2014 saw an upsurge in police activity with a record 177 arrests. In 2012, Stagecoach also saw a big surge in arrests and incidents, including a disturbing account of a 17-year-old girl who was inside a portable bathroom when three men forced themselves inside and assaulted her. The case was never solved. A total of 174 arrests were logged at Stagecoach in 2012, up from 88 arrests in 2011, however 2011’s Stagecoach was only a two-day festival.
Compared with Stagecoach’s sister festival Coachella, the percentage of arrests per festival goer has been significantly greater for Stagecoach over the years. In 2012, Coachella expanded to two weekends, and Stagecoach expanded to three days. 2012’s Coachella saw a total arrest number of 235 over the two weekends compared to Stagecoach’s 174. However with Coachella’s 85,000 attendees per day compared to Stagecoach’s 55,000, the rate of arrests per thousand attendees was over double for Stagecoach compared to Coachella. Fans were arrested at a rate of 0.46 for Coachella, but for Stagecoach the rate was 1.05 according to Ron’s Log.
Coachella’s 2015 arrest numbers came in at 226 over the two-weekend festival. Once again taking into consideration the length of the festivals and the amount of attendees, Stagecoach’s arrest percentage was doubled compared to Coachella.
Though Stagecoach and Coachella are just two festivals in an increasingly-crowded festival circuit, the side by side comparison of two separate festivals in the same location is further evidence that country music is now attracting the most unruly crowds in all of mainstream music. The Stagecoach arrest numbers come as country music gets ready for the start of the summer touring season a year after arrests, assaults, rapes, hospitalization numbers, and even multiple deaths dominated headlines in 2014.
April 28, 2015 @ 3:48 pm
Once Whoooaaahhhh Nelly releases his country album, we’ll have to start counting the meth-fueled drive-by shootings at these festivals too. Can’t wait.
April 28, 2015 @ 4:00 pm
You dont need Nelly for that. Any Bro country artist will do. Nelly now that he is older would probably class up the place.
April 28, 2015 @ 4:26 pm
There are two types of unruliness: the good version and the bad version.
Bad unruliness means attacking other people’s life or liberty, or attacking their property without any just social cause.
Good unruliness means refusing to obey puritanical laws that violate personal liberty, such as any alcohol or public drunkenness law that does not relate to drunk driving.
It seems like most of the arrests at Stagecoach (and at other country festivals) stem from the good type of unruliness.
April 28, 2015 @ 5:08 pm
You’re making an assumption that the people arrested for alcohol reasons weren’t impinging on the rights of others. I think it’s safe to assume the Indio police department didn’t arrest 150+ people just because they happened to be intoxicated and that was against their puritanical beliefs. These people were likely being unruly in some respect and not following a code of conduct that was affecting the other concert goers. I’m sure there were thousands of people piss drunk all weekend that didn’t end up in the pokey.
April 28, 2015 @ 9:18 pm
According to Indio police, only 3 arrests were made for violent or property crimes. There were 13 arrests for “public drunkenness” and 141 for “alcohol violations” (related to the purchase, possession, or consumption of alcohol).
I stand by my assertion that the so-called violations at Stagecoach were overwhelmingly of the peaceful type.
April 28, 2015 @ 4:28 pm
How does someone get arrested at a music festival? You go, you enjoy the music, you act civil, and you obey the law. What is so hard about that?
Stupid people. And no, the fact that most of the arrests were “alcohol-related” doesn’t make it alright. If you’re getting arrested, then you probably have yourself to blame.,
April 28, 2015 @ 9:20 pm
I attended the concert and was one of the people piss drunk at times and didn’t have any issues, nor did anyone I was around. There was the occasional drunk asshole or underage girl being caught by security, but overall a good festival. As for the acts, Miranda definitely under impressed and was pretty boring compared to other headliners. A small portion of the crowd usually leaves early to beat the lines, but a large portion of the crowd left before and during her performance, which was on a Saturday night too. Sturgill was great and will hopefully will have a bigger presence at these types of events as years go by.
April 28, 2015 @ 9:55 pm
It’d be interesting to see how many of the arrests were “underage possession of alcohol” – because America has the dumbest restriction of any free nation in that aspect. A kid can be sent to a war he doesn’t believe in, by a president he voted against, get his leg shot off … but can’t have a whiskey to celebrate the fact that he survived.
That’s {flipping} stupid. {edited to protect the kind of heart}
April 28, 2015 @ 10:09 pm
I was just reading on the Baltimore riots. That was about how many people were arrested in Baltimore for rioting, looting, assaulting cops ect. Sad really. It seems that stagecoach is a little overboard on arrests. Last summer I went to Rockin the Rivers, a rock fest. 10,000 in attendance. On Sunday, I asked one of the cops, a friend of mine, how many arrests they had made that weekend. The answer was none. I’ve been to concerts where you could barely breathe with the pot smoke in the air, but didn’t see anyone get arrested for it. Trigger was most likely right that some of them were infringing on other’s rights, but I doubt the majority were.
April 29, 2015 @ 9:07 am
One of the concerns I have about attending music festivals is being around many, many people who have chosen to be inebriated.
It impinges on my ability to chill and enjoy some good tunes and artists.
I don’t fault these folks, because I was young once and thought I had to sacrifice a virgin and burn a village to have a good time.
I just choose to not immerse myself in it.
April 29, 2015 @ 9:50 am
Of the 157, it would be interesting to see the % of redneck vs. yankee arrests. Or were there 100% California fruitcake arrests?
April 29, 2015 @ 10:17 am
According to a previous report, 80% of the people that attend Stagecoach are from California, as opposed to only 57% who attend Coachella. So I guess you could count the majority of arrests to be of Californians.
April 29, 2015 @ 11:12 am
I would rather that the security be overcautious and overeager than let anarchy rule as we have seen at other concerts.
April 29, 2015 @ 9:34 pm
There is a difference between private security, which only has the power to throw concert-goers out, and police, which has the power to arrest them. I have no problem with concert security throwing out the drunk and rowdy. I do, however, have a huge problem with police arresting them, since annoying other concert-goers does not equate to harming them.