This past weekend, I attended the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California. If you’re not familiar with the festival, you must be living under a rock since it’s one of the world’s largest music festivals with two weekends and over 125,000 festival goers per weekend.
After years of obsessing over the festival, I finally took a leap and was able to purchase tickets. Coachella happens in April of every year, while presale tickets go on sale for the following year in the beginning of June. Tickets sell out FAST. But luckily, I was able to snag two tickets for me and my amazing friend Megan (who happens to also be my coworker).
I’m a lover of fashion & music, so I was thrilled to be attending one of the biggest fashion music festivals in the world. The art was GORGEOUS, the music was amazing, and the fashion was breathtaking, but at the end of the day my expectations were not met. I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe celebrities everywhere with festival pop up shops galore? But there wasn’t that.
Festival Grounds
Social Media led me to believe that Coachella was the best thing to exist and that I had to attend. Don’t get me wrong, I had SO MUCH FUN dancing to the music, but it’s just not what I was expecting. The entire festival was uncomfortably crowded. In some parts, it was hard to walk without running into a sweaty shirtless man. The grounds at the end of the night were also extremely trashed with empty water bottles and food plates literally everywhere. It was sad that festival goers were so careless about where they were disposing of their trash.
Food
Being a food lover, I was very excited for all the festival food I was able to try. I was expecting various food trucks with exciting and different food I would be able to try. There were food booth lines and then the Indio Central Market. The food booth lines consisted of the same companies regardless of where you were in the festival. The food was basic consisting of pizza, chicken tenders, hamburgers, tacos, etc. The food was good, but not worth the $15 every time. The Indio Central Market was a little different. The area was covered so you could enjoy some shade. There were different vendors like a Kombucha bar and Cereal Milk Ice Cream.
Music
The cool thing about Coachella is the array of artists they have. There was EDM, rap, pop, indie, and even jam bands. Coachella consists of seven stages. With 125,000 attendees though, you can imagine it was packed. I’m not one to have to be front row for every concert, but some performers I was so far away it wasn’t even worth it. Not to mention the set times of several artists I wanted to see overlapped so I was forced to choose who was more important or constantly run back and forth between stages. BUT Beyoncé absolutely SLAYED and Odesza made me cry. Seeing them alone was worth the ridiculously amount of money I spent.
Overall, I did have a lot of fun and I’m glad I got to experience Coachella (the year that Beyoncé made history) But would I do it again? No, at least not being general admission. Ultimately Coachella is just a trashy, hot, overcrowded festival that will cost you more than an arm & a leg. Social media hypes up the festival too much & creates false expectations.
If any company, like Her Campus or College Fashionista wants to sponsor me or if I somehow become Instagram famous and are able to experience Coachella in a different light with exclusive parties & VIP tickets, I’d say yes in a heartbeat. But until then, I’ll be experiencing Coachella through the live stream in the comfort of my bed. Coachella, it’s been real but let’s not see each other again, okay?
Stay tuned for another blog post regarding my festival outfits.