There is a beef brewing in the unlikely of places. One hugely popular music festival recently filed a lawsuit against another festival for infringement. Once you build a brand, you do everything in your power to protect it and not allow others to cash out on the idea. This is exactly what Coachella is fighting for. According to Rolling Stone, organizers of Coachella filed a lawsuit this week against an underground music festival going by the name Hoodchella. Coachella insists that the underground fest is infringing on their name, trademark and creating an unfair competition. By copying their swag, Coachella claims that Hoodchella is diluting their brand. This is the second year that Hoodchella is taking place. Ironically, the festival is to occur just one week prior to Coachella. In the Coachella lawsuit, Goldenvoice, a subsidiary of AEG Live and organizers of the popular music fest, is seeking $100,000 in damages. They are asking Hoodchella’s organizer, Kamil Al-Ahdali to abandon the name. “Plaintiffs have no objection to Al-Ahdali’s holding a music festival; but Al-Ahdali has ignored repeated requests from plaintiffs to adopt his own distinctive festival name,” the suit stated, with Goldenvoice also claiming it spent nearly $700,000 in 2015 on “media and related content to promote Coachella.” However, supporters of Hoodchella says that they will not be smashed out by the big boys. They’ve even went as far starting a petition on Change.org. “This petition was specifically created for our supporters, everyone who supports Hoodchella Los Angeles and knows that we are not in anyway associated with Coachella and we have never been associated with Golden Voice, AEG, or Coachella,” the petition states. “It’s clear that our fan base knows we are two completely different establishments being that we already gained a fan base from our past underground art and music shows.”
