Ghanaian music festival Afrochella is currently facing a lawsuit from the American music festival Coachella for trademark violation.
On October 5th, Coachella and Goldenvoice, the company behind it, filed a lawsuit claiming that Afrochella is “intentionally” using the event’s trademark name and ‘trading on [their] goodwill’.
“[Afrochella] is intentionally trading on the goodwill of [Coachella and Goldenvoice’s] well-known COACHELLA and CHELLA festivals and trademarks,” Coachella Valley Music and Arts claimed in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims that Afrochella is doing this by “actively promoting music events in the United States and in Ghana using the confusingly similar mark ‘AFROCHELLA’ and by fraudulently attempting to register Plaintiffs’ actual trademarks as their own.”
Neither Coachella nor Afrochella have responded or spoken publicly about ongoing lawsuits. Afrochella is currently scheduled to take place this year on December 28 and 29. There are plans for Afrochella to expand to South Africa later this month, too, and the organizers have expressed plans to host U.S.-based events in the future. Goldenvoice filed the lawsuit to protect its ownership of anything related to the “chella” name, and the court docs claim the organizers attempted to patent “Chella” and even “Coachella” in Ghana.
