Big, bright, and boho-chic: these words may come close to summing up the festival powerhouse that is Coachella. Each April, music lovers and social media influencers storm the tiny town of Indio to bask in the sun and famously complain about the mile long lines for the showers. Yet they return every year, cementing the festival as one iconic to American culture.
Nowadays, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has become one of the world’s largest, most famous, and profitable music festivals, held annually at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. It features diverse genres—rock, pop, hip-hop, and EDM—across multiple stages, alongside large-scale art installations and culinary experiences, often attracting over 250,000 attendees across two special weekends in April.
However, the festival’s humble beginnings date back to Nov. 5, 1993, when Pearl Jam performed at Indio’s Empire Polo Club due to a conflict with Ticketmaster over service fees, as the band refused to play at venues controlled by the company. This performance proved that the Polo Club could handle massive crowds in the future.
Six years later, 1999 was marked by two festivals; Coachella and Woodstock, symbolically representing opposing outcomes in festival history. While the latter was a chaotic, violent disaster held in July, Coachella learned from its predecessor and was a peaceful, well-organized success which set the standard for modern-day music festivals.
The Coachella of the modern century truly began in 2004, when Paul Tollett, one of the founders of the festival, decided to bring together “trendy artists who were not necessarily chart successes” and create a curatorial musical event. This increased the festival’s credibility with fans, showcasing undiscovered talent and future stars that rose to fame on the stage.
In 2026, Coachella is no longer the small-scale music festival it once was, but an iconic symbol of American pop-culture both in-person and online. While many concertgoers come to the festival for the music for performers like Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Karol G, another smaller subset of the American public attends for commercial reasons.
It has become common for social media influencers to secure all-expenses-paid brand trips through big brands like Rivian, Revolve, and Guess. For these companies, it’s another way to capitalize on Coachella through grandiose marketing tactics; for the influencers, it’s a way to show affluence and promote themselves to their followers and the world. While some go as far as to beg for a brand invitation online, many are invited due to their popularity and earning potential.
In fact, some influencers don’t even attend the concerts: the free food, stylish outfits, and grand mansions they stay in are more than enough material for good content and a good time spent. Plus, simply going to Coachella via invite (versus paying thousands of dollars for a weekend pass) instantly elevates one’s status in the online community.
Regular attendees, in contrast, often pay thousands for tickets, accommodation, and travel, with many on-site camping in reserved spots. Unlike the curated, luxurious influencer experience, regular attendees navigate long lines, high prices for food and water, and heat, resulting in a drastically different, more physically demanding experience.
Whether in a dust-coated tent or an Airbnb mansion, the culture of “see-or-be seen” is clearly on display on social media. For example, between April 10–12 almost 40,000 posts and over 157 million engagements regarding Coachella were tracked on Instagram and TikTok.
Is the event still a celebration of the arts or simply a sea of content posted for virtual appreciation? How far can commercialism in art go and still have humanity? No matter how seemingly shallow an event like Coachella may seem, these questions, along with its rich history and growing cultural impact remind us that anything can hold lasting meaning to society.
