Frank Ocean to headline Coachella music festival in 2023: reports

One of the biggest names from the 2020 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival that was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic – enigmatic R&B star Frank Ocean – will return to the famous music festival, but not until 2023, the event's co-founder Paul Tollett told the Los Angeles Times in an article published Monday morning.

Tollett also confirmed a pair of headliners from the canceled event, Travis Scott and Rage Against the Machine, will be featured in the 2022 festival, with a third headliner yet to be announced, according to The Times.

Earlier this summer, event organizers announced that Coachella will take place April 15-17 and 22-24, 2022, while country music counterpart Stagecoach will happen April 29 to May 1, 2022.

Tollett told The Times that he typically wouldn't announce an act so far in advance, but he wanted to give fans some reassurance after the uncertainty of the last year and a half.

“Right now, it’s the Wild West,” Tollett said. “I’m just trying to be as fair as I can to artists and to the fans to make sure that eventually they get to see everyone that we talked about.”

Ocean was originally set to headline the 2020 show alongside Scott and Rage Against the Machine, but he was not available for the rescheduled dates in April 2022. Ocean has performed at Coachella once before in 2012.

The June announcement of the festivals' return was cheered by local leaders throughout the Coachella Valley, as the event bring tens of thousands of people to Southern California each spring, filling hotels and boosting the local economy. A 2020 report from the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership found the desert will likely lose roughly $1.4 billion from the cancellations of Coachella and Stagecoach in 2020 and 2021.

Aftab Dada, general manager of the Hilton Palm Springs and chair of the local nonprofit PS Resorts, previously told the Desert Sun that he has a "strong feeling" that demand will be high when the festivals return – and "applicable to all our special events."

It remains to be seen whether many COVID-19 restrictions will be in place when the festival returns next spring. Tollett's business, Goldenvoice Productions, is in the early stages of planning, and isn’t requiring vaccinations or tests, according to The Times.

“We’re monitoring everything,” Tollett said. “I don’t want to put anything in cement right now, because I just don’t know.”

Previous reporting from Desert Sun staff writer Brian Blueskye was used in this report.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Coachella 2023: Frank Ocean to headline music festival, reports