Despite rampant unemployment in the region, the Coachella Music and Arts Festival recorded its second-highest attendance in its 10-year history during the weekend.

The three-day event headlined by Paul McCartney, The Killers and The Cure, drew 160,000 people to the Empire Polo Club in Indio.

“It's kind of shocking in this world,” said Coachella co-founder Paul Tollett of the Los Angeles-based Goldenvoice promotion company.

The festival drew 180,000 people across three days in 2007 with Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Björk as headliners.

The two-day festival in 2004, featuring Radiohead and The Cure, plus a much-anticipated reunion of The Pixies, drew 50,000 people a day, and last year's three-day festival, headlined by Jack Johnson, Prince and Roger Waters, attracted just less than that.

Tollett said attendance during the weekend was pretty consistent all three days. The numbers started to increase, he said, when weather reports started showing unseasonably low temperatures.

“By Monday, we started seeing a major, major increase (in ticket sales),” he said. “Then the last two days just exploded.”

The weather is expected to drop to 86 degrees this Saturday and 84 degrees on Sunday. Tollett expects that to generate an advance sellout of the Stagecoach Country Music Festival, running those two days at the Empire Polo Club.

“That's a first for Stagecoach,” Tollett said. “The forecast is looking pretty good.”