One could not make a list of the most famous festivals in the country and not mention the Coachella festival, which is a huge annual music festival, which brings in people from all over the world, and large number of the world’s top artists, across different genres come together for a week long celebration of music. It is not unusual to find Hollywood celebrities walking around the festival, just like regular people, as they, just like normal people, come here to enjoy the great music and the delicious food stalls! So put on your best beach clothes and get ready for an insane amount of fun at this music festival in America.
Additional Info: Make sure to purchase your tickets way in advance online, as they run out quick
Location: Indio, California
Festival Dates 2022: 15th April – 24th April, 2022
Famous For: Music Festival
Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival History
2020–present
The 2020 festival was originally scheduled to take place on April 10–12 and April 17–19 with Rage Against the Machine, Travis Scott, and Frank Ocean as the headlining acts.] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival was initially postponed until October 9–11 and October 16–18, but in June, Riverside County public health officers announced it and Stagecoach had been cancelled altogether due to a ban on public gatherings, as well as lockdowns and travel restrictions. On April 10, a documentary profiling the festival’s 20-year history, Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert, was released on YouTube to coincide with the original start date of the 2020 event. The 2024 festival was also cancelled as a result of pandemic restrictions in California and the threats of the COVID-19 variants.
Coachella returned in 2022 on April 15–17 and April 22–24. The headlining lineup initially comprised Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Kanye West, and Swedish House Mafia. Less than two weeks before the festival, West withdrew. The vacancy in the Sunday night headliner slot was filled by Swedish House Mafia – who previously had not been scheduled for a specific day – for a joint performance with the Weeknd. While not advertised as a headlining act, Arcade Fire was added to the official 2022 schedule on April 14, a day before the festival’s first weekend.
The 2024 edition of Coachella, which took place from April 14–16 and April 19–21, was also beset with last-minute lineup changes. The originally announced headliners were Bad Bunny, Blackpink, and Frank Ocean; the former two were Coachella’s first Latin and Korean headliners, respectively. In the days leading up to the first weekend, Ocean suffered leg injuries from an alleged bicycle accident on the festival grounds. The production for his performance was then scaled down extensively; plans to utilize an ice rink with over 100 skaters were scrapped at the last minute,[129] forcing festival crew to hurriedly melt the ice surface. Ocean began his performance an hour late, and after exceeding the festival curfew by 25 minutes, he abruptly ended his show.[131] He subsequently withdrew from the second weekend, citing recommendations from his doctor. Blink-182, which reunited its classic lineup and had been added to the lineup two days before the festival began, was promoted to fill the second weekend’s headlining vacancy on Sunday night.[133] After they performed, the trio of DJs Skrillex, Four Tet, and Fred Again – all of whom were added to the lineup the day before the second weekend began – concluded the festival. According to reports, Goldenvoice will incur more than $4 million in losses from the production costs associated with Ocean’s unused ice rink, more than his booking fee for the performance. The promoters were also fined $133,000 for curfew violations from the opening weekend.
How much does a Coachella ticket cost?
between $549 and $649
We hope you’ve been saving up (all of the following prices include fees): General admission costs between $549 and $649, depending on when you’re able to snag them. Shuttle combo tickets cost $649 to $749. For VIP, it’ll cost you $1,119 to $1,399. Check out the Coachella website for wide range of camping rates.
Coachella Location and festival grounds
Coachella takes place in Indio, California, located in the Inland Empire region’s Coachella Valley within the Colorado Desert. Temperatures during the festival’s history have ranged from 106 °F (41 °C) on April 21, 2012, to 43 °F (6 °C) on April 14, 2012. The festival is hosted at the 78-acre Empire Polo Club; when accounting for land used for parking and camping, the event covers a footprint of approximately 642 acres. The site is about 125 miles (200 km) east of Los Angeles.
During the festival, several stages continuously host live music. Two outdoor stages are used, along with several tents named after deserts. The primary stages that have been in use since Coachella’s inception are:
Coachella Stage – the main stage that draws the largest crowds. This outdoor stage is where the headlining acts perform.
Outdoor Theatre – a smaller outdoor stage adjacent to the Coachella Stage
Mojave – a mid-size tent[140] named after the Mojave Desert that hosts acts across multiple genres and varying stages of development. In 2017, it was moved behind an access road. A year later, it received further changes, as it was enlarged and moved again, this time to the Sahara’s previous spot near the rose garden.
Gobi – a mid-size tent named after the Gobi Desert that hosts acts across multiple genres and varying stages of development. Like the Mojave, it was moved behind an access road in 2017.
Sahara – a large, hangar-like tent named after the Sahara Desert. It generally hosts the top electronic dance music acts. In 2013, the tent was expanded in size, reaching a height of 80 feet. Further changes were made in 2018, as it was built 25 percent larger and relocated west from the row of tents near the Empire Polo Club’s rose garden to a spot on the Eldorado Polo Club near the festival entrance. The new location offers more shade and alleviates issues with foot traffic. The stage was also moved from one of the open ends of the structure to one its sides, allowing a wider field of view to attendees.
Additional performance areas have been added over time, including:
Yuma – a small indoor tent introduced in 2013 that primarily hosts emerging DJs. The tent was intended to be “a sophisticated space that dials down the noise and strobe lights in favor of thoughtful sounds and underground acts”.
Sonora – a small indoor tent introduced in 2017 to host punk rock and Latin acts
Heineken House – a small venue introduced in 2014. It was dedicated to “legendary musical performances” and “live mash-ups from a wide array of musical artists”.[Originally designed as a walled structure to provide a club-like atmosphere, it was redesigned in 2019 to feature an open beer garden layout with a slanted roof, eliminating the long waiting lines and giving more visibility to attendees.
Despacio – a small indoor tent used in 2016. Co-created by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, the venue played “slow-simmering disco and vintage club music” on vinyl with the intention of creating a joyful setting. It featured a 50,000 watt sound system and air conditioning.
Antarctic – an indoor dome introduced in 2017 to screen 360-degree immersive videos. The structure is 120 feet in diameter, features 11,000 square feet in projection space and air conditioning, and can seat 500 people. Obscura Digital produced the film shown in 2017.
Oasis Dome – used in 2006 and 2011
Art
Two art installations from Coachella 2014: Lightweaver and Escape Velocity. The latter piece was one of several giant moving art installations designed by Poetic Kinetics for past Coachella festivals.
In addition to hosting live music, Coachella is a showcase for visual arts, including installation art and sculpture. Many of the pieces are interactive, providing a visual treat for attendees. Throughout the years, the art has grown in scale and outrageousness. Paul Clemente, Coachella’s art director since 2009, said, “I think the level of detail and finish and artistry and scale and complexity and technology, everything is constantly getting notched up, ratcheted up. We’re obviously constantly trying to, for lack of a better word, (to) outdo ourselves and make it better for the fans.
In Coachella’s early years, art was mostly recycled from the previous year’s Burning Man festival, due to smaller budgets. Between 2010 and 2015, Goldenvoice shifted its focus from renting pieces to commissioning them specifically for the festival, increasing their budget. Artists are given access to the grounds just 10 days before the festival, giving them a tight timeframe in which to assemble their pieces. Due to the high cost of re-assembly, only about half of them appear again outside of Coachella. Describing the festival’s importance to art, Cynthia Washburn of art collective Poetic Kinetics said, “With all the exposure here, I think Coachella is becoming as attractive for artists as it is for the musicians. In 2013, Clemente considered about 300 art proposals, the most in the festival’s history for the time. Poetic Kinetics has designed several giant moving art installations for past Coachella festivals, including a snail in 2013 (“Helix Poeticus”), an astronaut in 2014 (“Escape Velocity”), and a caterpillar that “metamorphosized” into a butterfly in 2015 (“Papilio Merraculous”). The collective reprised the astronaut for the 2019 festival (“Overview Effect”), with weathering affects applied to the design.
Some of the works have been featured at Art Basel, and involved participants from architecture schools, both local and international. A few of the visual artists, such as Hotshot the Robot, Robochrist Industries, the Tesla Coil (Cauac), Cyclecide, and The Do LaB, alongside avant-garde performance troupe Lucent Dossier Experience, have appeared for several consecutive years.[citation needed] Poster artist Emek has produced limited edition posters every year since 2007.
Impact and legacy
Fans attend a performance by Bassnectar at the Sahara tent in 2013
According to a 2015 ranking by online ticket retailer Viagogo, Coachella was the second-most in-demand concert ticket, trailing only the Tomorrowland festival.
Coachella is considered a trendsetter in music and fashion. Singer Katy Perry said, “The lineup always introduces the best of the year for the rest of the year.
Coachella has become known for the variety of distinctive apparel worn by attendees, which primarily include eclectic combinations of colors, materials, and ethnic borrowings. The latter has also resulted in backlash regarding cultural appropriation, particularly for non-natives wearing Native American-inspired headdresses and body paint.
According to a 2012 economic impact study, Coachella brought $254.4 million to the desert region that year; of that total, Indio received $89.2 million in consumer spending and $1.4 million in tax revenue. Goldenvoice’s other festival at the Empire Polo Club, Stagecoach, has been called a “cousin” of Coachella, but it has grown at a faster pace, eventually selling out for the first time in 2012 with 55,000 attendees.[199] Together, the two festivals were estimated by experts to have a global impact of $704.75 million in 2016; approximately $403.2 million of that was expected to impact the Coachella Valley, $106 million of which would go to businesses in Indio. The city was expected to gain $3.18 million in ticket taxes from the two festivals in 2016.
The success of Coachella led to Goldenvoice holding additional music festivals at the Empire Polo Club. It founded the country music festival Stagecoach in 2007 and continues to hold it on an annual basis. In 2011, the promoter staged the Big 4 festival, so-named for its quadruple billing of the most prominent bands in thrash metal—Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica, and Slayer. In 2016, Goldenvoice staged Desert Trip, which featured older rock oriented and legacy acts such as the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, and Bob Dylan.