Workers Hired by Coachella To Build Stages Shift Focus to Build Triage Tents

The same teams who were hired to build stages for Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival are now building temporary health facilities to treat patients affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

The Los Angeles Times recently published a story which features Ryan Choura his production company Choura Events. While his team is used to building tents and staging for music and sporting events, the coronavirus pandemic has caused them to shift focus.

Choura opens up in the article: “We pivoted so fast to being a rapid-response disaster relief team. If I didn’t know how to do Coachella, I couldn’t do this hospital. I saw patients coming in here and saw what they looked like. This is real, and we’ve got to move.”

Joey Gallagher, chief executive of Gallagher Staging, was prepared to build Coachella’s Main Stage this year. However, his team has also experienced an extreme change of plans.

Gallagher explains: “We’re an industry that moves faster than anyone. We’ll install an entire city on a blank slate. We have everything available: Wi-Fi, radios, generators, lighting, restrooms and wash stations. We can build a small city in a day or two, and that’s a need right now.”

Side note, Coachella has been rescheduled for this Fall, October 9 – 11 and 16 – 18, 2020.

Read the full feature via LA Times here.

Source: LA Times | Photo courtesy of Coachella