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Kanye's Not Playing Coachella Because They Wouldn't Build Him a Big Dome

Kanye originally had Ariana Grande's headlining spot but pulled out over something very, very dumb.
Kanye West
Carl Bjorklund / Shutterstock

When the biggest festival in the world asks you to headline their 20th anniversary show, you immediately say yes, right? Well, not in Kanye West's world! Per a new report from Billboard, Kanye was asked to headline this year's festival alongside Childish Gambino and Justin Timberlake but pulled out after the festival refused to build him a massive dome to perform in. The dome was to be designed by Kanye's frequent collaborator John McGuire.

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According to Billboard's sources, Goldenvoice—Coachella's promoter—called West on January 1st to explain to him that they couldn't rearrange the festival site to build his Very Large Dome because it would A) be impossible to do in four months and B) require them to move a lot of portable toilets. Kanye told Goldenvoice that A) he couldn't possibly perform a proper headline set on the tiny Coachella mainstage (one of the largest stages on the continent) and B) an artist of his calibre shouldn't be expected to talk about the logistics of portable toilets.

Apparently Kanye then hung up on Goldenvoice, at which point his former manager Scooter Braun secured prize talent Ariana Grande in the headline slot vacated by Kanye. Justin Timberlake pulled out of his headline slot at the last minute after it was found that his tour dates put him in violation of Coachella's radius clause, bumping Tame Impala to the top spot, and that's how we came to get this year's Coachella trifecta of Childish Gambino, Tame Impala and Ariana Grande!

An interesting note in the Billboard report is that Kanye was also in talks with New York's Governor's Ball about headlining, but they also refused to build him a big dome. 2019's turning out to be a tough time for Kanye (and those in the industry of building big domes!)

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