Festival

Officials in Nevada's isolated Pershing County want to make it perfectly clear: When it comes to the wild-and-wacky Burning Man festival held each year in their midst, they're not going to get burned financially. Not even close. The want to increase their bill for law enforcement and security for the Labor Day weekend bacchanal in the Black Rock Desert, on land overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. So far, state legislators aren't buying any price increase plans. A Nevada legislative panel this week narrowly approved a bill to prevent the sprawling county (population 6,734)

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival starts Friday, and that means hundreds of thousands of smartphone users will descend on Indio. And when you get that many people in one location, there's bound to be some connectivity issues. That's why the four major wireless carriers say they're going out of their way to make sure there is enough network capacity for their customers to make calls, send texts and upload photos and videos to their social networks. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint understand that at events such as Coachella -- where as many as 90,000 people may show up on one day -- users see just how good their networks are, and perhaps more important, how well their friends' carriers hold up. PHOTOS: The top smartphones of 2013 AT&T, for example, said it will be using all 18 beams of its super multi-beam antenna.

  On Tuesday, join L.A. Times book critic David L. Ulin and me, Carolyn Kellogg, for a video chat about the L.A. Times Festival of Books . The festival takes place the weekend of April 20-21 on the USC campus, and we'll be bringing you our insiders' preview. We'll try to share some of the insights we've accrued over the years -- for instance, we hope it'll be sunny, but not too sunny. And we'll talk about what's new this year. And we'll talk about the festival's many discussions and readings: what we're looking forward to and what we're upset that we're missing because it's hard to get to one panel when you're moderating another.

The 2013 Hear Now Music Festival is meant to be the sound of Los Angeles. What does that mean? No one really can say, anymore than what it means to be an Angeleno. Over two programs at the First Lutheran Church of Venice on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, a dozen pieces will be played by a dozen composers. They don't all live precisely in Los Angeles -- Altadena (William Kraft), Claremont (Karl Kohn), even Berkeley (John Adams) counts. The age difference is great. They come originally from Austria, Germany, New Hampshire and elsewhere.

International cinema takes the spotlight with the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles continuing at the ArcLight Hollywood multiplex, the UCLA Film and Television Archive's celebration of Iranian cinema opening Saturday at the Billy Wilder Theater, followed by the 17th City of Lights, City of Angels French film celebration opening Monday at the Directors Guild of America with the North American premiere of Daniele Thompson's "It Happened in...

Launching Friday at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, the Goldenvoice-promoted Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival has been a spring staple for more than a decade. Could it soon have some company in the fall?  Indio recently signed off on a 17-year agreement with Goldenvoice that will allow the promoter to keep Coachella and the country-focused Stagecoach in the town through at least 2030. The approved proposal also lays the groundwork for Goldenvoice to expand from three high-capacity yearly events to five.

The Tribeca Film Festival has announced its jury for the 2013 edition, and it's the usual mix of star names and unexpected public personalities. The world narrative competition jury will include playwright and filmmaker Kenny Lonergan, director Paul Haggis and actresses Bryce Dallas-Howard and Blythe Danner, as well as Time Magazine senior editor Jessica Winter. Meanwhile, Whoopi Goldberg will serve on the world documentary jury, joining directors Sandi Dubowski and Joe Berlinger and actresses Evan Rachel Wood and Mira Sorvino.

This Coachella edition gathers new music by lesser-known artists gigging this weekend's music festival as well as one epic reissue by a recently reunited group. If you haven't the desire, money or constitution to spend three days surrounded by so many humans under the desert sun, you can find comfort in the tracks (and watch the whole event live online). Kurt Vile, "Wakin on a Pretty Daze" (Matador). The Philadelphia singer and guitarist's new record is a guitar rock gem of the classic variety.

At a placid outdoor table in the Silver Lake restaurant Local, the frontmen of Local Natives are drinking coffee and look entirely at home. The restaurant is just a few blocks from their rehearsal space, a small house teetering above Sunset Boulevard and the indie-rock nightclubs where the quartet made its L.A. reputation. Singers Kelcey Ayer and Taylor Rice greet the server with the handshakes of old regulars, and along the way they hug members of another local act, Body Parts, that they had tried to land as openers for upcoming shows promoting their second album, "Hummingbird.

For a big swath of last year's Coachella, I followed around the young Kentucky rock band Sleeper Agent as they made their festival debut. They weren't an especially hyped or sonically au courant act, just a charismatic, road-dogging power-pop group on a slow ride up from the hometown dive circuit into national tours. They had a midday slot, a few powerful backers (like their manager, the son of music mogul Irving Azoff), and they seemed like a perfect band to trail to find out what it feels like to dip a toe into the warm pool of Coachella fame.