INDIO — A total of 90 people were arrested for the three-day Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on mostly alcohol related charges.
There were some drug-related arrests on all three days, said Ben Guitron, PIO for Indio Police.
One of the arrests on the first day was for assault, he said.
Thirty-three concertgoers were arrested on the first day of the fest, and 27 on Saturday. But Guitron said he didn’t considered those to be high figures.
Sunday’s total was 30.
“Predominantly they were all alcohol related,” Guitron said.
In addition, there was an issue on Friday at an entrance where “impatient concertgoers” forced their way into the festival, he said. But other than that incident, which did require police assistance, there was very little issues with traffic getting into the Empire Club Polo grounds, he said.
Last year, for the first weekend of Coachella, there was 134 arrests, Guitron said. The second weekend of Coachella had 101. Both days had arrests of an alcohol or drug nature, he added.
Guitron attributed the better numbers to concert and police officials getting the word out to concertgoers to “make good choices.”
“Have a memorable experience rather than staying in the county jail,” Guitron said of the message.
The three-day event, which last year was extended to two weekends, nearly doubles the amount of the city’s 85,000 population, he said. In the past the festival has drawn in 90,000 people which can cause congestion in the city’s streets.
Uniform officers have made some modifications to improve conditions for pedestrian traffic.
“We’ve been very pleased. Every year we try to do what we can to do to improve the conditions. We have a template that we go off and we make the adjustments,” Guitron said.
