The giant California Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival‘s second weekend will be preceded in town by a block party for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. The Sanders shindig featuring music and food is being called “Berniechella.” Berniechella is a two-day event — a Bernie Sanders Block Party on Grapefruit Boulevard and Vine Street in Old Town Coachella — that will take place April 21 and 22 and is free to attend. Sanders followers at the event won’t have to look far to see their enemies.
When the Sanders party is over, the big show — the reason hundreds of thousands of music fans attend Coachella Festival in neighboring Indio each the spring — must go on. The festival’s sponsors include T-Mobile, American Express, SiriusXM, and Heineken. Sanders and his supporters are largely opposed to these corporate giants who make the music festival possible. The CEOs of just the top four Coachella sponsors together have an annual compensation of approximately $61 million a year. They are not expected to attend Bernichella.
SiriusXM CEO James E. Meyer: $7,557,800
Heineken CEO Jean-François M. L. van Boxmeer: $10,292,615
T-Mobile CEO John J. Legere: $18,567,001
American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault: $25,100,000
