The annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and the subsequent Stagecoach Country Music Festival will be moved up a week earlier than ever before, it was announced late Sunday night.

The Los Angeles-based Goldenvoice promoters said the 10th annual Coachella will be held April 17, 18 and 19 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio. The third annual Stagecoach festival will be held April 25 and 26 at the same venue, but officials said “campers should plan on rolling in as early as the evening of the 23rd.”

Coachella has been presented the last week of April or the first week of May every year since its inaugural event in 1999, when it was held over two days in October. Stagecoach has been held the first week of May the past two years.

But Goldenvoice co-founder Paul Tollett said he never commits to dates at the Empire Polo Club more than a year at a time.

Hotel rooms for Coachella normally sell out months in advance; hotels usually increase their rates for the Coachella weekend. Stagecoach draws a bigger camper and RV audience.

“Each year we look at the avails (at Empire),” said Tollett. “That weekend was available, so we picked it. No specific reason.”

“This is a very important event, not only to us, but hoteliers and restaurants and the entire valley,” said Robert del Mas, operations manager at Empire. “Our season for league play goes to about that time. It was a little tight, but it was just something we had to work out and we did.”

Coachella is the most acclamed outdoor indie music festival of the decade, as determined by the concert industry trade publication Pollstar. It has presented headliners such as Coldplay, Radiohead, Prince, Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails and Beck.

Coachella traditionally kicks off the growing indie music festival season, but Tollett said he didn't think moving the date up would affect the acts he could book or the festival season as a whole.

The lineup for Coachella is usually announced around the end of January while the Stagecoach lineup has been announced before Christmas. But this is the earliest the dates have been announced for Coachella and Stagecoach.

Despite musings on Coachella.com about hoped-for bookings of Led Zeppelin, Daft Punk or Coldplay for the 10th anniversary, Tollett said he is “just always trying to book a good show.”

Information: www.coachella.com or www.stagecoachfestival.com