Music festivals became a real big deal worldwide and it is a positive thing. People can share a nice moment around music and amazing singers. By far, one of the most popular festival in the world is the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, or simply mentioned as Coachella Festival. From an interesting programme to all the celebrities you can see there, the Californian Festival is more than just jeans shorts and make-up. Here is what you did not know about the most fashionable festivals in the world.
Who owns the Coachella Festival?
We could say that the people owns Coachella. With 200’000 tickets sold every year in less than 20 minutes, the festival is always breaking new records. Behind the festival there is Goldenvoice, a subsidiary of AEG Live, the second biggest concerts organizer just after Live Nation. AEG live was founded in 2002 by Philip Anschutz, after acquiring several small promoters in Los Angeles. Two of them were ConcertsWest and Goldenvoice. This last one was founded by Gary Tovar, music promoter and manager of the Coachella Festival. AEG Live owns the Manchester Arena, the new Galatasaray home stadium as well as sports teams like Los Angeles Galaxy, Manchester Monarchs, and even some interests in Los Angeles Lakers.
The beginnings were not easy and after a couple of trials, Gary Tovar ended up selling Goldenvoice to AEG Live. Since then, the festival got bigger and wider. Last year it generated 198’000 tickets and grossed $ 84.3million making the festival as one of the most profitable festivals in the world.
Coachella is the stage for legendary reunions
The Coachella festival programme is a very edgy one. Everybody says that what you see at Coachella is going to be big that year. From new groups and artist to iconic legends, the Coachella music choice represents a good balance of the music industry at its best. The Californian festiva was also the stage of some unique reunions like these ones:
- 2003: Iggy Pop and the Stooges
- 2007: Jesus and Mary Chain
- 2008: Swervedriver
- 2010: Faith No More and Pavement
- 2016: Axl Rose and the Guns’nRoses
The music festival also had amazing rare performances like Leonard Cohen, Björk, The Cure, The Verve or the Throbbing Gristle. This year The Coachella Festival will feature Bob Dylan, The Who or Neil Young. A blast!
Coachella is also an Art Festival
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival became worldwide renowned for it’s music but did you know it is also an arts festival? Paul Clemente is the Arts Director for the festival. Initially the idea was to recycle arts installations from Burning Man festival but very quickly the festival gathered more than 300 artists building interactive art installations. One of the most interesting artists in the festival is Poetic Kinetics. It has designed several giant moving art installations for past Coachella festivals, including a snail in 2013, an astronaut in 2014, and a caterpillar that metamorphosized into a butterfly in 2015. The artists have an exclusive access to the location only 10 days prior to the festival starts. They need to build their installations and test it in a record timing. The festival art reputation has grown year after year and some of these artworks were already featured at Art Basel. Paul Clemente’s team and himself travel the world in order to discover new promising artists and bring to Coachella Festival a cutting edge choice.
There are things you cannot bring with you at Coachella Festival
Each festival has its own rules, DOs and DON’Ts. At Coachella, the list of forbidden things are pretty funny actually. To start, you cannot bring your “Selfie-stick”. This is absolutely forbidden. Last year almost one out of 10 people had one. Imagine the ambiance at several concerts with people trying to make a shot! So this year, do not bring one.
Another interesting forbidden object is a child buggy without a child in it. You can bring your son or daughter buggy but please bring the child with it. Otherwise the festival will end up with supermarket trolleys on site. Last but not least, the Glow Sticks! These are completely forbidden from the festival. Last year, glow sticks were distributed to the crowd and unfortunately they were used to pelt people with them. So no more sticks.
Celebrities are the best entertainment in the crowd
One thing about Coachella is the fact that sometimes the true show and entertainment is in the crowd. Actually so many celebrities are attending to the concerts that yoy might end up standing between one of the Kardashians and Lenny Kravitz or Jared Leto. Some of these celebrities would not miss one single edition of the festival. They come every year since 2007 or even before. Here are some of the festival big fans among celebrities.
- Paris Hilton, since 2007
- Diane Kruger since 2011
- Joshua Jackson since 2011
- Kellan Lutz since 2010
- Alessandra Ambrosio since 2010
- Kate Bosworth since 2009
- Katy Perry since 2011
- Jared Leto since 2009
- Lindsay Lohan since 2007
- Dita Von Tease since 2009
Festivals are definitely a big thing right now. Not only there is an economical reason why festivals are better than isolated concerts, but it also provides the participants to a more holistic experience, which is much more a 2016 trend anyway. Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival became a tremendous reference in the music and entertainment business and also opens the festival season with a great level of quality and originality. You can check the official Festival website to get the feeling of the event:
http://www.coachella.com
José Amorim
Info sourced at Coachella website and communications, Forbes, Wikipedia, Popsugar, highsnobiety. All content is copyrighted with no reproduction rights available. Images are for illustration purposes only.
