Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds may not want to fly too high at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April. We Were Promised Jetpacks and The Airplane Boys might want to watch themselves, too because the FAA is coming to town.
That's right, the Federal Aviation Administration will be on hand at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival April 13-15 and April 20-22 and the Stagecoach Country Music Festival April 27-29 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio thanks to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
The FAA is issuing a Notice to Airmen that aircraft should not fly below 2,000 feet when within a two-mile radius of the event and will have monitors on site to ensure compliance.
Back in 2008, the year of Prince covering Radiohead and Roger Waters sending a great big inflatable pig into the ether, there was a plane that flew overhead and dropped what the press release called "confetti" (and what I remember as pamphlets for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama) on the crowd and into people's nearby swimming pools.
Indio Police Chief Richard Twiss brought up the concern of the low-flying plane and the leaflet drop, which was not planned by concert promoter Goldenvoice, to Boxer, who took it to the FAA.
Also, it is illegal for aircraft to drop any items during the concert, so if your next great marketing plan was to blanket the crowd in something during Dr. Dre and Snoop's epic Sunday night sets, you have less than 30 days to come up with a new brilliant idea.
But if you want to do some jet-setting music exploration without getting in trouble with the FAA, check out our interactive artist map for the 2012 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
Each marker tells you a little about an artist. Click the link inside to go to a page to hear some of their music. Click the map below to start exploring.
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