Here's an article re: Field Day + Coachella from the LA Times:

When Paul Tollett learned of plans for Field Day, a Long Island rock festival largely modeled on the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival that he created, he wasn't angry that a rival had taken up a concept whose viability he'd worked hard to establish.

In fact, he was flattered -- enough so that his Goldenvoice promotion firm, part of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, is now partnering with the Field Day organizers to put on the event. Just a week before Coachella takes over Indio next weekend, Goldenvoice and Field Day executive producer Andrew Dreskin have made an agreement to involve the L.A. firm in producing and promoting the Long Island festival, set for June 7-8 at Enterprise Park in Calverton, 70 miles east of New York City.

This may prove to be just the first Coachella-inspired festival the two team up on.

"I think there will be more, because we're going to bring this to other parts of the country," says Dreskin, former co-founder and chief executive of TicketWeb, the first company to sell concert tickets over the Internet. The firm was bought three years ago by Ticketmaster.

As for the festival, "it's about time," Tollett says. "I think it has to be big markets, progressive cities. But there's room for a few more out there."

Though these festivals have been common in the U.K. and Europe for years, the general feeling was that the concept hasn't been a good fit in the U.S. since the '60s. Maybe for jam bands and bluegrass, but not alternative rock. For that crowd, Lollapalooza was the way to go, with a package that traveled around the country, generally in established venues. Coachella, after surviving a financially rough debut in 1999, proved the doubters wrong. Dreskin, who moved from California back to his native New York in late 2001, thought it was time to try it there.

"These are commonplace around the world, and Coachella is a great example of one that took hold," he says. "I just refused to believe that this model would not work in the U.S."

With that in mind, he found a site that could support such an event as well as provide some camping facilities, and booked the Beastie Boys and Radiohead as the top attractions, with Beck, Sigur Ros, Underworld, Blur, Thievery Corporation and Beth Orton among the other acts that had either been in Coachella lineups or fit a similar aesthetic.

But how many places can it go before it gets spread too thin?

"Look at the distances people travel to go to Coachella," says Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of concert business weekly Pollstar. "Obviously it's the kind of thing that would work in other markets. The problem with the summer is there are so many large concerts and big tours out. Will it get confused with a local stop on Lollapalooza or Warped or other things competing?"


[Edited on 21-4-2003 by JerseyJoJo]