When you hear “Coachella” you probably think of flower crowns, celebrity sightings, or festival fashion. Over the past few years, I’ve heard a lot of things about Coachella but I never fully understood what Coachella is all about until I attended this year.
Before I went, I tried to be as prepared as I could be by asking friends who have gone previous years and reading blogs for tips and tricks on “surviving” the festival. But let me just tell you right now, nothing could have prepared me for my first time at this music festival. Here is the rocky and stressful (yet totally amazing) story of my first time at Coachella.
We started on the road to Coachella, meaning the planes, trains, and automobiles and 12+ hours one spends traveling to get to the middle of nowhere. Being the broke college students that we are, we thought it would be a good idea to book the Airbnb for Friday through Sunday to save money, which means nowhere to stay on Thursday night. Being broke also means we weren't able to afford the ridiculously overpriced $700 plane ticket to Palm Springs. Meaning that we had to wake up at 4 am the first day of the music festival to drive 7 hours down to Southern California and then spend the next 10 hours at the festival. Sounds like hell, right? But here’s the best part. My lovely roommate and best friend unfortunately left her wallet and wristband for the festival at home and didn’t realize it till we were already driving for an hour and a half. After we finally got to the dessert, 3 hours late, we rushed to get ready for the festival.
Immediately when I stepped onto the grass of the Empire Polo Club, I felt overwhelmed and confused. I’ve been to a few small music festivals before but this is a completely different rodeo. There was so much going on I didn’t know where to look or where to go. First of all, there was a humongous Ferris wheel in the middle of everything and I honestly don’t see the point of it. Do people really have the thought like, "oh yeah let me take a break from watching Grammy award-winning music artists and take a ride on a Ferris wheel?" This is a music festival, not a county fair.
Of course, five minutes after we get there the first thing we do is have a photoshoot in front of that giant dumb Ferris wheel because it’s cute and makes for a good background. It’s expected that when you go to Coachella, you spend at least 40% of your time taking pictures. This guarantees that you will have the perfect pictures to post on social media to show everyone you went to Coachella. I myself am guilty of posting way too many pictures on Instagram at Coachella.
Whoever schedules the performers at Coachella is a cruel human being. Imagine yourself in a situation where two of your favorite artists are performing live at the same location. It’s great, right? The catch is that these artist’s sets START AT THE SAME EXACT TIME. Now I understand Coachella is a huge festival with several stages and lots of big name artists; I could see how difficult it is to create a schedule. But do you really have to schedule Lorde and Kehlani, two extremely popular female singers, at the same time? Throughout the weekend there were various moments when we had to make a very important decision, which artist we should see perform. This decision is as hard as deciding where to go out to dinner. The first day of Coachella hit me with this harsh reality. Besides not being able to see a few artists I wanted to see, day 1 was a success. I didn’t lose my friends, I ate a $8 piece of cheese pizza, and saw some of my favorite artists such as the XX, Dillion Francis, and Oh Wonder.
Just as I was feeling good about myself and the amazing day I just had, we were hit with an Uber catastrophe. Long story short, Uber teamed up with Coachella and had an area for people to call Ubers at the end of the night. My friends and I were trying to get out to the street to find our Lyft driver but this wasn’t possible because we were trapped in this area. We were herded into a ginormous line, which we weren’t even supposed to be in, and were forced to stand there and wait for what felt like an eternity. Now I know what sheep feel like.
We were forced to climb fences and gates to get out of that hell hole and we finally found an exit. After walking blocks and blocks, plus getting into arguments between my two friend and me, we found our Lyft driver in a Walgreen's parking lot. This entire process of getting home took two hours, when our Airbnb was a 10-minute drive away. This is only two hours after driving 10 hours to get to the festival then proceeding to spend 10 hours at the festival on our feet. It's not like I'm still upset about it or anything! Now I love my friends and I had a great day at the festival with them but at this point we had been together for 36 hours straight and I was ready to chop their heads off. And this is after one of my friends decided to have a mental breakdown and take her anger out on us. But that’s what friends are for, right? When I got home that night I was ready to sleep for 15 hours straight.
Every morning, or more accurately, in the early afternoon when we were finally capable of getting out of bed, was spent discussing the day before and planning the day ahead of us. We posted Instagram pictures (priorities), talked about our favorite performances, gave advice on where to get food, and asked each other if we’ve seen any celebrities, which we never did. Planning the day ahead of us at the music festival was as meticulous and detail-oriented as a plan of attack during a war. However hard we tried to be so organized, we lost each other after an hour of being there.
The next two days were pretty similar to day one except I got a sense of my surroundings and didn’t feel like a 5-year-old lost in a supermarket. One highlight of day two includes seeing Two Door Cinema Club perform live.
Now there are three types of people in the crowd at Coachella. There are the die-hard fans who get to a stage 2 hours early just to be in the very front of the stage while an artist performs. These people will do anything and everything to get through the crowd and past people standing in the crowd. This includes shoving, pushing, and stepping on other people’s feet. A large percentage of the crowd consists of people who get to the set about 10-15 minutes early and get a decent spot where they can see the artist well enough. The third group consists of chill and easygoing concert goers who just want to listen to the music and don’t care to see the stage. Typically, I am in the majority of the crowd and enjoy seeing the famous artist to know they’re there. However, during Two Door Cinema Club’s performance, I was one of the "chill" concert goers who didn’t have a care in the world. Two Door Cinema Club is an artist that I’ve been listening to for 6 years and being able to see them perform live after these many years was absolutely amazing. All my thoughts and worries left my head and all I focused on was listening to the music and dancing my heart out, even though I was embarrassingly dancing by myself. I forgot about my mom holding a grudge against me because I was missing Easter and the giant accounting midterm I had to take the following week. Coachella is a unique experience in this way. Just being in front of a stage with hundreds of people around you, listening to music sung by an artist you enjoy, and taking in the scenery of the field makes you feel like you’re in a whole different world, with no obligations. Now I understand why everyone talks about how amazing Coachella is.
I learned a very important lesson the third day of Coachella. Drink water. No, that does not mean solely drinking a small bottle of water while you’re out in the sun for five hours. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way. As I was standing in the Gobi Tent watching Honne perform during the late afternoon, I felt completely awful. All at once I got a headache, stomach ache, and I felt dizzy. My body was shutting down. I am someone that tries to be easy going, so I didn't inform my friends about how I was feeling, especially because they were having a good time. I took about three steps to walk out of the crowd and then fell straight to the ground. I passed out at Coachella even though I tried so hard to be prepared! My aloe and Band-aids wouldn't help me in this situation. When I woke up, an angel, aka some random guy in the crowd, shoved his Camelbak backpack straw in my face and I drank from it like it was holy water. For about an hour after, I recovered from my dehydration in the shade while my friends shoved about 10 water bottles in my face even though I felt like I was going to drown because I drank so much water. Thankfully, I recovered just in time for Porter Robinson and I think he helped me recover more than the water did.
Coachella was an experience unlike any other. I can honestly say it was the best and the worst time of my entire life. There were some ups and downs and even though I lost my Coachella virginity and tried to be as prepared as I could possibly be, nothing can prepare you for the three days in the dessert that is Coachella.
