On Wednesday, everyone that is heading out to the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in two weeks received the news of a surprise addition to the line-up – Prince. Coachella is always surrounded by rumors about the line-up and potential to almost impossible reunions, such as The Smiths, before the official announcements are made in January. Every year, fans debate and dispel rumors regarding which bands & artists will play the festival out in Indio, CA on blogs, message boards, and MySpace. The promoters also always fuel the fire by waiting to add a big name or two in the weeks leading up to the event. I figured that the Prince announcement, which is fairly big news for the show, might drive a large spike in traffic to the official Coachella website, but the biggest jump still happens during the initial announcement for the majority of the lineup. The news has been covered by many blogs & news outlets, so that may have been enough confirmation for many planning or contemplating attending.

Interest in tickets is high as the festival draws close & fans get closer to making a final decision about attending – 29% of the traffic from the Coachella website visited Ticketmaster immediately after for the week ending April 5th, 2008 and 36% visited for the week prior ending March 29th. Also receiving a significant share of traffic from the Coachella site was roger-waters.com, a website with details on tour dates for Roger Waters who is also performing at Coachella.

Anyone else headed out to Indio? I have decided to prioritize my love for music (especially Portishead) over the oppressive heat and attend again this year. I am trying to forget an amusing but true quote overheard during the 2004 festival – “I wish The Pixies would just play, I hate this hot place”. Let’s hope the temperature stays under 100 degrees!

Heather Dougherty

Heather Dougherty is Director, Research at Hitwise. This piece originally appeared on Hitwise's analyst blog here.

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