Coachella Arrests Reported

Police arrested 203 people across the two weekends of Coachella 2026, according to figures released Tuesday by the Indio Police Department. (ktla.com) The department reported 97 arrests during the first weekend and 106 during the second. CBS Los Angeles said the weekend-two total pushed the combined count to just over 200. (usatoday.com, cbsnews.com) Drug possession, public intoxication and fake identification accounted for most of the arrests, local outlets reported from police summaries. USA Today said drug possession alone made up 59 of the 97 arrests during weekend one. (ktla.com, usatoday.com) The 2026 total was slightly lower than last year’s, after KTLA reported a higher arrest count in 2025 at Coachella and Stagecoach. Indio police released this year’s numbers after the festival’s second weekend ended on April 20. (ktla.com, ktla.com) The arrest tally landed as Coachella remained expensive even before food, travel and lodging. The Los Angeles Times reported on April 22 that general admission passes retailed at $649 for weekend one and $549 for weekend two. (latimes.com, yahoo.com) That cost picture has become part of the festival story in 2026, with attendees telling the Los Angeles Times they pieced together trips with savings, split housing and long drives. Separate festival coverage said both weekends sold out in about a week. (msn.com, yahoo.com) Coachella is held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio and draws crowds large enough to require a broad police presence each April. Recent coverage of the 2026 event said attendance was expected to reach about 125,000 people per day. (msn.com) For local police, the post-festival count is now the clearest measure of what happened outside the headliner sets: hundreds of arrests, but fewer than a year earlier. (ktla.com)