When fans buy their tickets to Coachella, the iconic music festival that draws star-studded lineups and influencer crowds looking to flex their social media cachet in the California desert, they probably don’t think about where they’re going to pee while waiting to get in.
Yet that’s exactly what some who paid to park their cars and camp at the venue found themselves struggling with late last week, with fans reporting long waits to get into the festival grounds at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif.
Tiktok user @notliss posted that her group had been waiting in their cars for 10 hours, calling it “dehumanizing.”
“People are literally using the bathroom behind bushes like animals, and they paid over $600 [US] to be here,” she said in a Thursday video.
For fans who made the trek to Coachella, this was just the first hurdle, with attendees reporting that the already pricey food options were even more expensive than usual. That, combined with complaints about tepid crowd responses from fans watching livestreams and some musicians themselves, has many wondering: just who is Coachella for: the artists, festivalgoers or fans watching from home?
A stage for established and rising stars
Coachella is easily one of the biggest music festivals in the world, known for attracting some of the most famous names in music who stage some eye-popping performances.
This year’s event, which kicked off its first weekend last Friday with headliner Lady Gaga, will continue this coming weekend with performances from established acts like Missy Elliott, Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion, Charli XCX, Green Day and Travis Scott, among countless others.
For bands on the rise like The Beaches and TOPS, two Canadian groups that made their Coachella debut this year as part of the main lineup, the festival is still an exciting opportunity.
Coachella has always been a “bucket list festival,” for Jordan Miller, lead singer of Toronto-based rockers The Beaches.
“If you were a really cool band, you would play Coachella,” she told CBC News. “And so we grew up with dreams of doing that.”
With a new album, No Hard Feelings, set to release in August, the band behind 2023 hit Blame Brett were thrilled to bring their sound to U.S. audiences.
During their set on Sunday, The Beaches brought out a surprise guest — Australian artist G Flip, who helped write their new single, Last Girls at the Party.
The surprise guest is a Coachella staple: Charli XCX performed with Troye Sivan, Lorde and Billie Eilish; Queen Latifah took the stage with Megan Thee Stallion; and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders introduced Clairo, in a speech where he urged the crowd to stand up to U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and “fight for justice.”
Some caviar on your nuggets?
TOPS, a dream-pop fourpiece from Montreal, had come close to nabbing a Coachella gig, but it never materialized — until this year.
“It’s been said that it might happen a few times and I never believed it would,” said guitarist David Carriere. The band said they were most excited about playing new music to the Coachella crowds, teasing that they’re releasing a new song in the next few weeks.
Although two members of the band had attended the festival before as fans, it was totally new to Carriere and lead vocalist Jane Penny, who said it’s “pretty much outta my price range, unless I’m booked as an artist to attend Coachella, to be honest.”
Tickets to Coachella start at around $539 US ($752 Cdn) for general admission for one of the two weekends, and can reach more than $1,199 US ($1,673 Cdn) for VIP passes.
And that doesn’t factor in food or drinks.
Though gimmicky menu items like chicken nuggets topped with caviar for $100 US and a pop-up luxury omakase experience curated by chef Nobu Matsuhisa — a steal at just $350 US per person — seem to reinforce the perception that Coachella is less a music festival and more a convention for the wealthy, even the casual eats on offer are going up in price, according to attendees.
“The food has always been expensive, but I’m going to my tried and true favourite food stands that return to the festival every year and suddenly it’s not $7, it’s $9,” said Kristi Cook, an influencer who’s attended every Coachella since 2017.
Cook, who runs Spill Sesh, an online series reporting on pop culture, told CBC News that this year, a friend bought a “tiny sandwich” that cost $27 US.
“It’s crazy.”
Live or livestream?
Another sign of the disconnect between festivalgoers and musicians was the tepid crowd reaction to some of the biggest names in music. Cook, who says she enjoyed her time at this year’s festival overall, mentioned that she was surprised by the lack of dancing during Lady Gaga’s set, despite an energetic, creative performance that quickly garnered praise online.
That’s because her performance was livestreamed on Coachella’s YouTube channel. It’s a service that’s been offered since 2011, but it’s become a bigger part of the event in the last few years.
Cook says some performers are clearly taking the livestream into account during their performances, aiming to create viral moments that circulate beyond the festival grounds.
“I definitely think that it’s more than just the attendees that this is all for,” she said.
Penny notes that the livestream was one of the things that made Coachella “a good opportunity” for TOPS.
“We have so many friends and fans, like, tuning in,” she said.
But the livestreams haven’t calmed the complaints about Coachella’s lacklustre audiences — many who watch online have commented that the crowds aren’t as hype as they believe they would be if they were in attendance.
Even artists are joining in on the shade. Singer Benson Boone brought out legendary Queen guitarist Brian May during his Coachella performance. He later posted a Tiktok in which he pretended to be reacting to a silent audience, writing: “me trying to get the crowd at Coachella to understand what an absolute legend Brian May is and the cultural impact he has on music and THE WORLD.”
But complaining about Coachella is kind of part of the experience, says Cook, because everyone wants to be involved in these pop culture moments.
“It’s kind of the fun of it all, ’cause it creates a conversation and people love to talk about stuff.”
Some complaints around the festival are higher stakes. Toronto DJ Bambii, who was invited to perform at Coachella’s Do LaB stage last Friday, shared in an Instagram story over the weekend that during her set, the equipment provided was “malfunctioning,” and that the artist who was on before her had warned her about it. She said she felt Coachella should, as a “bare minimum,” provide working equipment considering she wasn’t paid for her appearance.
“It’s safe to assume had we been bigger artists on the main stage this issue would have been fixed WAY earlier within the show day,” she wrote.
CBC News reached out to Coachella for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication.
Criticisms that the festival is too expensive and leans a little bit too into the cachet of celebrities and influencers “are fair,” according to The Beaches’ Miller — but she says she’s also seen other festivals try to capitalize on trends. For her, getting to perform to new crowds makes it all worth it.
“It’s still an incredibly popular music festival, and regardless of why people are necessarily attending, it can be a great opportunity to get your name and your band out in front of new people,” she said.
“A gig’s a gig at the end of the day.”