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It was the second rickshaw that did it. The winding, dusty path that leads from the Coachella taxi drop-off to the pageant web site correct is so lengthy and circuitous that cyclists ply their commerce alongside the marathon route. A few years in the past this week, after half a mile or so of mountaineering within the baking solar, I lastly caved and agreed to Venmo a jock with thighs the scale of Christmas hams half every week’s wages to pedal me in the direction of the distant strains of music. Eventually, we got here to a fence, then a gate, and past it… one other crowd of cycle rickshaws.
I blinked the mud out of my eyes and realised this was no mirage. For some arcane, inexplicable motive the street had been divided into two sections and I used to be now confronted with both promoting a kidney to pay for one more rickshaw experience, or becoming a member of the luckless plenty blistering their toes as they trudged joylessly by way of the dust. I weighed my choices and got here to a simple determination: I by no means wished to see this blighted hellscape of a pageant ever once more.
Coachella – back right now for 2 extra sun-dappled weekends – has a reputation as one of many world’s nice events, however in my expertise, it’s a pageant you’ll spend largely sitting in visitors and paying obscene quantities of cash to find yourself completely underwhelmed. Still, I admit there was a time after I was determined for a ticket – regardless of the $400 (£320) price ticket (lodging not included). From a faraway vantage level, Coachella seems fairly good. Beautiful folks partying beneath palm timber as a few of the world’s most proficient musicians take the stage? Where do I enroll?
My first Coachella was 2013, a cursed yr maybe greatest remembered for insouciant French rockers Phoenix making the ill-advised determination to invite not-yet-convicted intercourse legal R Kelly to be part of their headline set. I left residence wide-eyed and looking for a California dream. I got here back sunburnt, exhausted and with a newfound appreciation of simply how good we have now it within the UK when it comes to festivals. There’s a sure je ne sais quoi to partying all night time in British fields that Coachella simply can’t replicate.
Although I’m now an LA native, I grew up in England, raised amid the chaos of Reading Festival, the place crowds of feral youths usually remodeled the campsites into Lord of the Flies – if Jack, Ralph and Piggy had been actually into indie sleaze. Soon after, I graduated to Glastonbury, which stays to me the Platonic preferrred of a music pageant expertise. It’s one other world, an altered state you submerge your self in for an extended weekend.
Regulars, nevertheless, will know all too effectively that there’s one recurring grievance. At some level within the night time, as soon as the headline acts have performed their ultimate notice, some 200,000 folks will strive to transfer en masse to the after-hours occasion within the South East Corner, an underground rave space generally dubbed the pageant’s “naughty corner”. This creates an immense and prolonged crush, suppose the tube throughout rush hour however a thousand occasions worse.
At Coachella, they’ve taken this perennial drawback and added vehicles. Lots and plenty of vehicles. Imagine Glastonbury if instantly after the Pyramid Stage set ended, half the group referred to as an Uber and the opposite half wandered the fields too drunk to keep in mind the place they parked. It could be a visitors snarl-up of epic proportions, and it occurs each single night time at Coachella. Spare a thought for the huge swathes of rideshare drivers, who’ve usually travelled in from out of state to reap the benefits of the beyond-surge pricing, and who’ve as little concept about what’s occurring as anyone else. Last yr, my 10-mile journey took 48 minutes and price $87.
This all begs the query: why is everybody so determined to get to their vehicles? Because there isn’t a “naughty corner” at Coachella. The after-parties occur off-site, largely at luxurious rented properties in close by Palm Springs – which aren’t lined by your unusual ticket. To put it one other approach, after-parties aren’t actually a part of the pageant in any respect, so that they solely add but additional expense and trouble to what’s already a logistical nightmare of a weekend.
To be honest, some folks do camp at Coachella, however there’s valuable little occurring within the campsites after the headliners end. Not to point out, everybody parks their vehicles subsequent to their tents, which makes the entire thing very civilised and boring. Three youngsters from Reading with a field of fireworks might raze the entire place to the bottom in about half-hour – they usually’d in all probability have extra enjoyable doing it than most of the completely coiffured however joyless influencer varieties appear to have all weekend.
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Given the stress required to get on and off web site every day, you’d think about the pageant web site itself should be little in need of Shangri La. Guess once more. Once you’ve made it previous the extortionate meals costs – $64 (£51) for 2 burritos and two coffees – it will get even worse. I’ve little doubt that what I’m about to say will shock and upset British festivalgoers, nevertheless it’s my obligation to report the reality: at Coachella, it’s inconceivable to drink booze whereas wandering from stage to stage.
Thanks to statewide ingesting rules (one more reason why Brits do festivals higher), you’ll be able to solely eat alcohol inside sure designated fenced-off areas, and solely a handful of those have an area the place you can even glimpse a stage. Predictably, these areas change into extremely sought-after actual property, so the possibilities of discovering an area to concurrently sip one thing refreshing whereas watching a headliner play the hits are vanishingly slim. Frequently I’ve discovered myself penned inside a ingesting cage like a battery hen, screaming internally: “My kingdom for a cider bus!”
This yr, it appears I’m not alone in my disdain for Coachella. According to reviews, ticket gross sales had been at their slowest in 10 years and much fewer folks have booked locations to keep within the neighborhood than that they had this time final yr. Some of that’s absolutely down to the price of residing disaster: how can one justify a weekend that’ll value upwards of $1,000 when doing the weekly store is tough sufficient? You have to think about, although, that recollections of visitors jams and a number of rickshaws by way of mud clouds don’t assist. Personally, this yr I’ll be spending Coachella on the sofa, watching the livestream with a gentle provide of selfmade cocktails readily available. Some issues simply look higher from a distance.
Coachella 2024 takes place between Friday 12 April and Sunday 14 April, and returns for a second weekend on Friday 19 April
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