Hotel rooms, some as low as $71, still available for Coachella fest

Both weekends of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April are sold out. But hotels in the general area of Palm Springs and Indio still have rooms for less than $100 a night, depending on how far away you’re willing to stay.

AC/DC, Steely Dan, Jack White and Florence & the Machine are headliners at the 2015 festival.

Priceline reports that for the first weekend, April 10-12, two-star hotels such as the Super 8 Motel Yucca Valley — about 50 miles northeast of the concert venue — still have rooms for $78 a night.

Other two-star properties can cost as much as $359, and three-star hotels show prices of $189 to $529. The Aqua Soleil Hotel & Spa in Desert Springs, for example, still has rooms for $339. (The stars represent Priceline’s rating system.)

The second weekend, April 17-19, show nightly rates on Priceline going for $659 for five-star hotels, $288 to $609 for four-star hotels, $152 to $542 for three-star hotels and $71 to $388 for two-star hotels.

Marriott’s Shadow Ridge II — The Enclaves in Palm Desert shows rooms going for $469 for the second weekend.

In its report as of Friday, Priceline sampled hotels in Palm Springs, Desert Springs, Borrego Springs, Banning, Beaufort, Yucca Valley, Palm Desert and La Quinta.

As for tickets, Coachella sold out less than 40 minutes after the passes went on sale Jan. 7, according to the Riverside Press Enterprise. General admission passes for three days were sold for $375 each, $435 if you added a shuttle.

Online ticket seller StubHub shows three-day passes starting at $630. But if you’re buying from a third party, proceed with caution.

The Coachella website has all kinds of disclaimers about buying tickets from a third party. How will you know if the tickets you buy work? You won’t find out until the code is scanned at the entry gate.

The annual festival is at the Empire Polo Club, 81-800 Ave. 51 in Indio.