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Reward Offered for Return of Flying Pig
The organizers of the Coachella Music festival are offering a $10,000 reward for the recovery of a giant inflatable pig. It broke loose from its tethers during the three-day festival's closing performance on Sunday. KPCC's Steve Cuevas has more.
Steve Cuevas: It happened at the end of the first half of former Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters' set during the song "Pigs." As the song ended, the pig, scrawled with a variety of political slogans, ascended... and ascended, and ascended...
[Sound of song "Pigs" ending]
Roger Waters: Well, thank you. That's my pig!
Audience members: Where did it go?! I hope it lands on our house!
Marcee Rondan: I don't really have the details on how exactly it happened. What I do know is that he floated away at the end of the first set of Roger Waters' show.
Cuevas: Marcee Rondan is a Coachella Festival spokeswoman. She can't be sure – or isn't saying – if the pig broke loose, or maybe was set free.
Rondan: We believe it to be accidental, but again, that was preliminary.
Cuevas: Rondan says the pig now belongs to Goldenvoice, the company that puts on the festival. That's why organizers are so eager to get it back.
Rondan: I don't even know that they've made a plea for it yet. It's just something that they wanted to get back, and I think they'll determine afterwards how to utilize him through possible future Coachellas.
Cuevas: And I've heard different things about its actual size. Do you have any idea –
Rondan: Yes. It's about a two-story house, about that high – and the width of a couple of buses.
Cuevas: In addition to the 10,000 bucks, the pig finder will get four lifetime tickets to the Coachella Music Festival.
Update 4/30/08: The Pig has been found! Two couples found the tattered halves of the inflatable pig in their yards. The couples will split the cash reward.