A stagehand who worked with the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival for 20 years — since the beginning of the event — was killed Saturday morning when he fell at least 60 feet from scaffolding connected to a stage near Monroe Street and Avenue 50, on the grounds of the Empire Polo Club in Indio.

In a statement released Saturday afternoon, Goldenvoice, the production company behind the festival, confirmed the death and expressed its grief over the loss, describing the man as “a friend, a family member.”

“Today, Goldenvoice lost a colleague, a friend, a family member,” Goldenvoice said. “Our friend fell while working on a festival stage. It is with heavy hearts and tremendous difficulty that we confirm his passing. He has been with our team for 20 years in the desert and was doing what he loved. He was a hard-working and loving person that cared deeply about his team. As our lead rigger, he was responsible for the countless incredible shows that have been put on at the festival. We will miss him dearly.”

Late Saturday, the Riverside County Coroner’s Office identified the man as Christopher Griffin, 49, of San Diego.

Indio police spokesman Ben Guitron said emergency personnel were alerted at about 9:30 a.m. about some kind of accident on the Empire Polo Club grounds, where the festival is held. Emergency personnel rushed to the site.

Guitron said a worker in the staging area at the polo grounds had fallen and he died at the scene.

In a subsequent tweet, Cal Fire reported there had been a “traumatic injury” and that the person “fell from a roof and perished at the scene.”

Guitron said the fire department notified Cal/OSHA since the incident occurred on a work site and is considered an industrial accident.

In this 2013 file photo, more than 80,000 people crowded into Indio, Calif., for the first weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The Desert Sun snapped images from the crowd — including people wandering the grounds and the view from the top of the ferris wheel — on April 12, 2013. (Photo: Desert Sun file photo)

TMZ has reported that an eyewitness said the worker was climbing the stage scaffolding and fell about 60 feet, and that the worker didn’t have a safety harness tethered to a cable to stop him from falling.

On social media, dozens of members of the public offered condolences to the friends and family of the worker. Some questioned how the fall could have happened and whether the death might affect the festival.

Last year, three people were heading to Coachella when they crashed on Interstate 10, near Banning. An 18-year-old woman died after being thrown from the car.

A Cal/OSHA report from 2017 detailed a festival worker’s fall that resulted in a broken hip.

A Highland woman was killed April 15, 2016 after being struck by a vehicle on Avenue 52. At the time, there were reports the 18-year-old had gone to the polo grounds in order to get a job at the Coachella music festival.

That same year, on April 24, 2016, two security guards were stabbed during a fight near the festival’s check-in area. A third man had facial injuries in the fight, which occurred at about 10:30 a.m. None of the injuries were fatal.

A San Diego man in town for the festival was killed when he was hit by a train on April 11, 2015. Investigators found the man east of Jackson Street in an area between Avenue 45 and Indio Boulevard, about four miles from the polo gpounds. The death was investigated by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and Union Pacific Railroad.

In 2014, an Oakland woman collapsed during the music festival and later died at a local hospital. At the time, investigators hadn’t ruled out a drug overdose as the cause of death.

In 2013, a 59-year-old festival security guard was struck by a vehicle and killed on his way to the festival. A Palm Desert man was charged with DUI/vehicular manslaughter.

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