Delayed headliner Lainey Wilson eventually took to the stage hours later to thank fans for “sticking out the wind.”

Stagecoach Music Festival evacuates audience due to extreme winds

Delayed headliner Lainey Wilson eventually took to the stage hours later to thank fans for "sticking out the wind."

By Shania Russell

Shania Russell

Shania Russell is a news writer at *, *with five years of experience. Her work has previously appeared in SlashFilm and Paste Magazine.

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April 26, 2026 1:56 p.m. ET

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Lainey Wilson performs at the 2026 Stagecoach Music Festival after her set was delayed due to extreme winds. Credit:

John Shearer/Getty

- The 2026 Stagecoach Music Festival evacuated its audience on day 2 due to high winds.

- Attendees were urged to exit the festival grounds when winds were peaking at 65 mph.

- Within hours, the country festival resumed and headliner Lainey Wilson hit the stage.

The 2026 Stagecoach Music Festival suffered a serious delay Saturday evening — but the show did eventually go on.

The annual country music festival was temporarily evacuated and performances were postponed due to high winds in the Southern California desert region. Footage from the event, shared on social media, showed an urgent message on the fest's main stage screens urging attendees to exit the grounds.

"Emergency Evacuation," the screens read. "The festival has been postponed until further notice... Please move quickly and calmly to the nearest exit."

A similar message was sent out to concertgoers via the Stagecoach app at approximately 7:45 p.m. PDT. Thousands of people poured out of the festival grounds following the evacuation message.

The 2026 Stagecoach Music Festival.

Timothy Norris/Getty

The city of Indio, where the event is held, was under a strong wind advisory until 11 a.m. local time Sunday morning. Earlier in the week, the National Weather Service advised that Southern California's desert regions could see elevated to strong westerly winds reaching speeds of up to 65 mph, peaking on Saturday night.

The festival's interruption was short-lived. About an hour after the evacuation, the winds calmed down considerably and the Stagecoach social media pages posted a message noting that "the show will resume momentarily." The 9 p.m. message added that staff members were working to open the doors and prepare the site for fans to return.

Less than two hours later, headliner Lainey Wilson took to the stage for a triumphant set. "Thank you so much for sticking out the wind," the singer told the crowd, per *Billboard*. "Hopefully you sat in y'all's cars for a bit and drank some tequila."

Lainey Wilson performs at the 2026 Stagecoach Music Festival in Indio, Calif.

John Shearer/Getty

She continued, "We came to Stagecoach to have a damn good time, and that's what we gonna do."

Wilson was wearing her signature bell bottoms for the performance, during which she sang hit tracks like "Ring Finger," "Good Horses Come Home," "Road Runner," and "Country's Cool Again." The singer also welcomed several special guests to the stage, including "I Wish Grandpas Never Died" singer Riley Green and Little Big Town. She wrapped up the show with two of her biggest hits, "4x4xU" and "Heart Like a Truck."

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Wilson's headlining gig at the world's largest country music festival comes on the heels of her recently released Netflix documentary, *Lainey Wilson: Keepin’ Country Cool,* in which she opens up about the dramatic highs and lows of sudden stardom following her breakout in the early 2020s.

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Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Music”