Soul’d Out Productions, an Oregon-based promoter that runs the annual Soul’d Out Music Festival, has filed a lawsuit against Goldenvoice, the AEG-owned company that puts on Coachella, as Billboard and the Portland Business Journal report. Soul’d Out argues that Coachella’s restrictive radius clause—which prevents artists from booking festival appearances within 1,300 miles of Indio, California between December 2017 and May 2018—violates federal anti-trust laws. Soul’d Out organizers claim that multiple artists, including SZA and Daniel Caesar, have had to turn down playing the Soul’d Out Music Festival due to Coachella’s radius clause. Lawyer Nicholas F. Aldrich, who is representing Soul’d Out, argues that radius clauses do not greatly benefit Coachella since the festival sells out months in advance, and is asking the court to toss out the radius clause agreements.
Goldenvoice has publicly responded to the suit, issuing the following statement to Celebrity Access: