Who Booked Coachella 2025? The deep dive.

Back in 2020, NIF’s parent company ROSTR put out the first ever Who Booked Coachella? Since then the annual series has become infamous for its unique look behind the scenes of one of the world’s most famous festivals.

Earlier this week, Goldenvoice (the promoter behind Coachella), surprised us all by announcing the lineup for next year’s festival 2+ months earlier than the usual January announcement.

In this special edition of New Industry Friday we take a deeper look into the data that ROSTR already released including:

• Which booking agencies booked the most acts and how the agency landscape is trending

• How the fragmented management ecosystem plays out for this lineup

• How the record labels fared and what’s happening with indie decline

• The mini-resurgence in Rock and other genre trends

• How even Coachella can’t get a gender balance (and it’s getting worse not better)

Here we go…

💡 Where does this data come from?

ROSTR tracks rosters and data for more than 15,000 music companies worldwide including agencies, labels, publishers and management companies. ROSTR also tracks data about artists including audience, genre, gender, and other data. When the Coachella lineup is released we combine our data with the lineup (and confirm with our partners at agencies, labels and management co’s) to produce this analysis. If you’re not already signed up to ROSTR you can sign up for free here.

A CAA clean sweep of the headliners

Creative Artists Agency (CAA) swept all 3 main headline slots - Lady Gaga (Friday), Green Day (Saturday), and Post Malone (Sunday). In the 5 years we’ve been doing this, it’s the first time a single agency has taken all 3 slots. William Morris Endeavor, in ‘20, and CAA (‘22 & ‘24) had 2 each in a single year, but this is the first clean sweep since we started.

Wasserman Music booked the most artists overall with 22% of the lineup - that’s 5 years in a row they’ve had the highest share (counting Paradigm in ‘20 which later became Wasserman Music). CAA booked the second largest share (19%), then United Talent Agency (UTA) who have their highest share in the last 5 years (17%), ahead of WME (14%).

Ground Control Touring have the highest share for an independent agency in the last 5 years with 8%. TBA, Liaison Artists and International Artist Group (IAG) are the other independents that stand out from the pack this year.

In total we counted 22 unique agencies representing at least one artist on the lineup.

A trend back towards the pre-pandemic major / indie levels

The major agencies (CAA, WME, UTA, Wass) booked 68% of the lineup, reversing a trend toward independent bookings seen in '22 and '23. After dropping from 75% in 2020 to 66% in 2023, the share is now trending back toward pre-pandemic levels.

Goldenvoice are gonna need a lot of artist passes…

Across the 154 artists on the lineup, we tracked 135 different management companies (a number of artists also have multiple companies). It demonstrates quite how different the management vs agency ecosystems are. Out of those 135 companies, just 11 companies had more than one artist on the lineup.

Of those who did, Three Six Zero have the most artists with 7 (horsegiirL, underscores, A. G. Cook, Shermanology, AMÉMÉ, Francis Mercier, Tripolism).

SALXCO were next with 4 (Austin Millz, Mohamed Ramadan, Hope Tala, Ty Dolla $ign). In 3rd are Three Six Zero partners Forward Motion with 4 (all shared with Three Six Zero).

Independents declining despite the wider trend

Independent artists make up 60% of the lineup for 2025. But, excluding COVID influenced 2022, the independent share is dropping 1% each year. Not dramatic sure, but a slow and steady trend that is counter to the growth of independents we’re seeing generally in the music market.

Looking at the major record groups, UMG (19%) continue to dominate with almost as many artists as Warner Music Group (WMG) and Sony Music Group combined (very similar to our recent GRAMMYs analysis). UMG also have two of the headliners (Gaga and Post).

In addition to one headliner (Green Day), it’s worth noting that WMG have a strong showing on the second rows with artists like Missy Elliot (Friday), Charli xcx (Saturday) and Junior H (Sunday) amongst others. Sony’s big shout is Travis Scott who is credited as “Designs the Desert” at the bottom of the poster.

Artists without a label an increasing influence on the lineup

With 11, Interscope Records have the most artists on next year’s lineup, including - headliner Lady Gaga, Zedd and GloRilla. Atlantic Records are a close second with 9, including Charli xcx and Missy Elliot.

Independent UK label Ninja Tune outshine the rest of the pack thanks to their electronic roster that includes Maribou State and Ben Böhmer.

Notably, an increasingly large share of the lineup is artists that aren’t signed to a label at all. For 2025 we count 21 artists like this including some highly placed names like Megan Thee Stallion, The Misfits, Miike Snow, Amyl and The Sniffers, and Clairo.

A minor rock renaissance

Just a few weeks ago we covered a decline in guitar bands at European festivals. But, this year’s Coachella lineup bucks that trend - Indie/Rock/Alt, which tends to cover guitar-driven artists, increased by 4%. This includes legacy acts like Green Day and The Misfits, but also a number of newer acts including Sam Fender, Clairo, Still Woozy and beabadoobee.

Leading the numbers overall is Dance/EDM with 39% of the lineup. The Coachella poster has, for some time, had a lot of electronic acts further down the post. However, one glance at the poster above shows you how that has changed - dance acts appear all over the poster these days as festivals increasingly lean towards DJs.

Elsewhere, Hiphop / Rap got a slight bump this year (+2%). Latin and R&B both dropped 3 points.

Even Coachella can’t get close to a balance and it’s one of the better ones…

Back in 2022 the male vs female & non-binary ratio at Coachella got as close as 60/40. Since then it’s been retreating rapidly; this year it’s 70/30. Which means that for every female artist on the lineup there’s more than twice as many men.

Taking into account mixed gender bands/groups (10%), just 25% of the lineup is female. This is the lowest figure we’ve recorded in the last 5 years. Which, in an era when women artists are dominating the charts and culture, is kinda wild.

Of the 3 (+1 w/ Travis) headliners, Gaga is the only non-male headliner. Stark contrast to Primavera Sound which recently announced its first ever all-women headliner lineup (Charli xcx, Sabrina Carpenter & Chappell Roan).

Bonus: what the lineup would look like if you remove either female (left) or male (right) artists.

That’s all we’ve got for this year. Before you go, you should:

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