Brett Kelman

The Desert Sun

For the second time in two weeks, the Coachella Music and Arts Festival has sued a company that was offering to re-sell entrance wristbands meant exclusively for artists and their guests. The lawsuits show that although Coachella is generally willing to look the other way to the scalping of general admission wristbands, the festival is cracking down on the re-sale of the festival’s most exclusive passes.

The claim, filed in court on Thursday, accuses Los-Angeles based Alliance Talent International and its representative Jason Swartz, of buying and re-selling festival wristbands, which are not transferable. Alliance Talent International has been added into a lawsuit that was filed last week against a different company, Particle LLC, which was accused of doing the same thing.

The lawsuit is based on an email, sent out last November, advertising the sale of artist guest passes. In the email, Swartz describes the passes as “significantly better than anything publicly sold.”

“They are within the first 20 feet of space right in the front of stage and are gated off for ARTIST GUEST ONLY,” the email states.

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Coachella said it has been “forced” to take the matter to court because anyone who bought the artist guest wristbands would be a “trespasser and a security risk” to the musicians at the festival. The suit also accuses Alliance Talent of infringing on the festival’s trademark because it uses the Coachella name while peddling the wristbands.

Coachella, an annual festival that draws hundreds of thousands of music fans to the Indio Polo Grounds, started last week and continues this weekend. This year’s headliners are LCD Soundsystem, Guns N’ Roses and Calvin Harris. Tickets cost hundreds of dollars and sell out in minutes.

Coachella forbids the re-sale or transfer for entrance wristbands, and anyone who is caught with one can be denied entrance. Despite these rules, scalping remains a constant reality at the Coachella festivals, with wristbands openly re-sold on websites like StubHub and Craigslist. Most re-sold wristbands go undetected.

On April 13, Coachella filed a suit against Particle LLC and its president, Denise Kozlowski, who were also accused of attempting to re-sell artist passes online. The festival argued that anyone who actually bought these wristbands would be denied entry or thrown out of the festival, and that the situation would do “irreparable” damage to Coachella’s reputation.

Neither Particle, Kozlowski, Alliance Talent nor Swartz have yet responded to the lawsuit. Calls to Swartz and Coachella’s attorneys were not immediately returned.

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Reporter Brett Kelman can be reached at 76 778 4642 or brett.kelman@desertsun.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @TDSbrettkelman.