Goldenvoice to buy Eldorado Polo

By Staff Report April 16, 2012

Los Angeles-based concert promoter Goldenvoice has initiated purchase of the 200-acre Eldorado Polo Club in Indio, CA. The parcel is the site for the music company’s annual Coachella Music Festival, which kicked off April 13-15 and continues April 20-22.

The company had been leasing the land from Eldorado Lake Farms,  a consortium of 19 player-owners who purchased the land through the years and built up the club over the past 55 years. Eldorado is one one equine property doing double-duty. Goldenvoice (a division of the Anschutz Entertainment Group’s AEG Live) also leases adjacent land owned by the Empire Polo Club and Horse Shows in the Sun (HITS).

Escrow is expected to close in the next 60 days, and until the sale is final the principals are reluctant to discuss the details, but word is the arrangement will reverse gears, with the land leased back to polo contingent for the winter season, typically Nov. 1 through the first week in April. “They like how the polo club maintains the beautiful grass field, which is so much nicer than a dirt surface for the concert-goers,” said a source familiar with the transaction.

While the Empire site is used for the main staging and audience areas, among the uses for the Eldorado land is on-site camping.  (The HITS land is used primarily for parking. HITS relocated its hunter-jumper venue to nearby Thermal as several years ago.)

The horses seem happy with the arrangement, too. Eldorado’s high-goal season just culminated in the Governor’s Cup Finals on April 1, and while most of the equines from both clubs had been relocated by the time the Coachella rolled around, the few stragglers in the barn area take the rock-and-rap in stride. (Goldenvoice also runs the Stagecoach Country Music Festival out of the same venue April 25-29, which style may be more to the horses’ liking.)

Since both Lake Farms and Goldenvoice are privately held, the purchase price was not immediately disclosed. The sale also includes another 80 acres, comprised of properties that include Triangle Bar Farms, Fish Creek and the property owned by polo player Ambassador Glen Holden.

Indio Mayor Glenn Miller told the local news outlet MyDesert that he hopes Goldenvoice will bring in a variety of smaller festivals throughout the year to help bring more tourism to the city, 20 miles east of Palm Springs.

More information about the polo schedules at Eldorado and Empire can be found by clicking the links. Click here for more information about the Coachella Fest and Stagecoach Fest.

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