The History of Coachella

By Molly Ryan

Edited by R. Garzone

May 6, 2022

We’ve all heard of Coachella, but what is it exactly? Why does it exist?

Coachella was created in 1999 by Paul Tollett and his company, Goldenvoice. In its first year, over 20,000 people attended the first two days of the event, earning over a million dollars.

Coachella is a festival where people dress in funky clothes and listen to popular music artists perform. Held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, Coachella also has dance parties, art shows, food options, vintage markets, and a ferris wheel.

The festival has grown tremendously since its first year and now it’s much more than just a weekend of listening to good music. The last reported numbers are from 2017, with an average of 127,000 people attending each weekend and 250,000 in total.

A general admission ticket for Coachella that permits day parking is $429. A VIP ticket, which gives access to parking and the VIP areas in the venues, is $999. If you're staying over, the cost is higher. A lot of people stay at nearby hotels, or camp out to get the best spots for the next performances.

People rave about this event. On TikTok there are videos about people picking out their outfits for the days of Coachella. Coachella is split over two weekends, potentially meaning four days of outfit choices. Some of the outfits at this year’s festival included Harry Styles and Lizzo wearing matching bright pink fur coats and Emma Chamberlain’s gold knit romper.

Colonie Senior Katie Mather said if she went to Coachella, she would wear a pink sparkly skirt with a black crop top and a pink cowboy hat. She also stated that tickets should be about $500, but that ticket would include parking and food with no additional fees.

In 2022, the performers included Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, and Phoebe Bridgers. 2022’s Coachella was a big success because COVID-19 canceled two years of the festival. Coachella’s 2020 festival was originally scheduled for April, then later postponed to October, before finally being put together in April 2022.

Due to COVID, there are testing sites across the festival if people start to feel sick. The gates open around 11 am (usually earlier due to the trouble of finding a good spot for the performance), and the last performance ends around 1 am.