advice needed.... My tentative plan was to fly into San Diego from Tampa. Check SD out on Wed/Thursday. Drive to festival Friday morning (early). Drive back to SD Sat. or Sunday night. Catch flight back Monday. I'm not bringing camping gear. This is more of a quick fun trip rather than actually getting real deep into the festival. How poor is this plan? Sleeping in car a huge deal there (it isn't at Hulu, Bonaroo, etc)? Impossible traffic?
Driving in Friday morning isn't ideal, but it's fine for a quick, fun trip. Thursday (called day zero) in the campground is a huge party and a ton of fun. But I think you're doing it right by spending that day in SD. It's a great city and if you've never been before then it's better than day zero at Coachella. It's also a lot less taxing on your body. The desert sun is no joke. If you do regular Car Camping and get there Friday morning, you'll end up with a spot that's about a 15 minute walk from the festival entrance. If you do Preferred Camping you'll get a spot that's less than a 5 minute walk. It may not seem like a huge deal to be that much closer, but it is. There are very limited alcohol sales inside the festival and when you do buy alcohol you have to drink it in a beer garden. So if you want something to sip on while you're watching a set, you've got to smuggle it in. And unless you're bringing in a bunch of flasks, you'll probably need to head back to your campsite at least once for a refill. That 15 minute walk will turn into a 30 minute round trip. If you're not planning on drinking a lot, then it doesn't matter as much. You can drive back Saturday or Sunday night, but again it's not ideal. If this is what you end up doing, then be aware that they put the campgrounds on lock down between 10:00 pm and 2:00 am. That means they won't let you leave during those hours. So if you want to leave at night, it has to be before 10:00 or after 2:00. Seriously though, the video and sound production at Coachella is incredible. It's got to be one of the best places on the planet to see a bunch of music with top-notch production. Every act will sound amazing. If you love music, then take advantage of it and stay for as long as you can. No camping gear might be a problem. You don't necessarily need a tent, but you'll absolutely want an ez-up canopy (or something similar) for shade and you'll probably want an ice chest to keep beverages/water and snacks cold. It's in the desert and it will be hot as fuck. There are places inside the festival grounds with AC and shade, but not so much in the campground. So if you're not planning on going in to the festival until sometime in the afternoon, then you'd just be baking in the campground with no shade or cold drinks and that would be miserable. People would show pity on you and let you under their canopies and give you water, but still you don't want to be that guy. You can sleep in a car if you want to. I've seen people sleep in beds of trucks or in back of SUVs (with the back row of seats put down). There are also plenty of people passed out on the ground. No one will judge you for where you sleep. But again, it will get super hot as soon as the sun comes up. Sleeping in a car, even with windows down and doors open, does not sound great. I usually sleep outside on a cot. Traffic shouldn't be an issue until you start getting close to SD. While SD traffic can be bad, it's not nearly as bad as the infamous LA traffic. Hints/tips: Invest in a CamelBak or Osprey or equivalent water storage back pack (pro tip: before you fill it up with water, buy a cup of ice from one of the food vendors and dump the ice in your water bladder). It's the desert and the sun will absolutely kick your ass. You need to drink a lot of water. Bring earplugs to wear at night when you're sleeping. Some people will party all night long and it can be hard to fall asleep if you're too close to the noisy ones. Coachella can be a struggle during the day due to the heat (still a ton of fun though if you like music), but it's absolutely amazing once the sun starts going down. Sunset is magical and you'll feel rejuvenated once the sun isn't fucking you over. There are a handful of places in the festival with AC and one place with a bunch of water guns and misters. The Yuma tent (techno/house DJs) and the Sonora tent (up and coming rock acts) are enclosed spaces with AC. The Do-Lab (club/dance music) has a bunch of misters and people with water guns/cannons. Go to one of those areas if the sun gets to be too much. The shower options in the campground are limited (both the number of showers and their operating hours) and if you go at the wrong time you may be waiting in line for an hour. One of the showers is 24 hours, though, and I go to that one around 1:15 am right after getting back to camp. The line is almost non-existent at that time. If your girl likes to be super cute and look really put together, she may hate camping. There are real bathrooms/toilets inside the festival, it's not all port-a-potties. Find out where these are. I usually go in to the festival as soon as doors open at 11:00 am so I can be the first person to use one of the aforementioned real toilets. If you're in the campground and you really need to poop, try to find a port-a-potty that's just had the cleaning truck go by. If you have sensitive lungs, then buy some dust masks. It can get windy and there might be a literal dust/sand storm. As hot as it can be during the day, it can also be really cold at night (it's the desert). So bring a sweatshirt and pants just in case.
Incredible. Thanks. Maybe I’ll buy some cheap tent/supplies when I arrive in SD. I just didn’t want to have a huge to do list. will a regular car camping ticket allow me to enter on Thursday?
The campgrounds will open Thursday morning. If you've got a camping pass (car, preferred, or tent) and a festival wristband can enter at that time. Thursday is when 90% of people get there, though, so the lines will be long and it will take you a few hours to get inside and be assigned a spot. On the bright side, the security lines for the cars are like a mix between a tailgate and the worst traffic jam you've ever seen. It can be pretty fun.
Is driving from LA Friday morning substantially worse than driving from SD Friday morning? Flights are cheaper to LA from Tampa.
What time would you be landing at LAX? On Thursday evening, it would no joke be ~4-4.5 hours to get to Indio. If you land around 7 AM, you can beat early LA traffic and maybe get out there in ~2.5-3 hours. But if you land 730-930 AM you will hit LA downtown traffic getting east and probably be ~3.5-4 hours. Anything after that, you're probably back down to ~3 hours. Most people go Thursday I believe, that traffic is nuts.
How fast do passes sell out? Looks like they go on sale 11 AM PST and there might be a waiting line. Any tricks?
Unfortunately about ~75% of passes are sold in the annual June/July pre-sale, so only about 25% of passes will be available in January. The waiting room opens about 30 minutes before hand, I would recommend having multiple browsers, incognito and normal, and multiple devices if you are serious. There were a couple years I had multiple windows on three devices and couldn't get in. Typically weekend two sells out in an hour or two - if you are trying, you can get passes. Weekend one is more of a crapshoot. That said, passes have been within ~$100 of face on Stubhub in the weeks leading up to the fest pretty much every year. If you realllly have brass balls, you can typically get face value passes a couple days before the fest around LA from people who have to sell last minute. My only advice would be DO NOT panic buy ~$800-900 tix the day of on-sale if they sell out ASAP.
Lineup should be out today with ticket sale tomorrow or Monday. "Final rumors" are RATM, Frank Ocean, and Travis Scott as headliners with Flume, Lana Del Rey, and My Chemical Romance as sub-headliners and Thom Yorke and The Chemical Brothers being the "big rare" names on the second line, but we will see.
I went from going a few years ago and knowing a little music of most bands to really knowing zero small font bands.
missed the waitlist. I'm on some bs pre-sale list now. Sounds like tickets are going to go quick as hell Monday. I'm sure I'll end up buying from a third-party site.
I'm planning on flying to El Paso to see RATM's tune up shows in El Paso and Las Cruces. Has anyone heard anything about when/how tickets will be sold?
Yes, Stubhub is the best site to use. Prices are going to be astronomical in the next couple weeks - I said this before, but do not buy. They ship tickets in March, and people typically list the tickets after they receive them, so the market will be flooded with supply in early/mid March. The ideal time to buy is usually mid-March as in the final couple weeks before the fest prices typically swing way down or way up and you're kind of just speculating at that point.
what about grabbing these for $460 now? Maybe just wait and see how I do on Monday? https://www.stubhub.com/coachella-m...eld-4-17-2020/event/104183394/?sort=price+asc edit: per reddit the tickets on there are legit so I grabbed some for week 2. I paid a little more obviously but at least now I can stop worrying about tickets. I'm assuming tickets get mailed in March to my seller and then he ships them to me (so I hope).
You did tell me not to do that, but I was getting sick of it occupying my time. Plus ppl said prices would rise first and I should wait to buy in March. Definitely didn’t want to wait until March. You going week 2 or 1? What positives/negatives come with either week?
Weekend 1 will undeniably have better grass and more of a ‘surprise’ factor. Weekend 2 will undeniably be more fine tuned since the artists and festival get all the kinks worked out during the first weekend. For example, OutKast weekend 1 was alright. They reworked their performance and set list for weekend 2 and were great. Both weekends will have guest appearances. Some years weekend 1 has the ‘better’ guests and some years weekend 2 has them. This isn’t something you can plan for. There’s also the perception that weekend 2 has a better crowd. The idea is that most of the influencers and wannabe influencers will be at weekend 1 whereas the crowd at weekend 2 will care more about music. In my anecdotal experience this has been kind of true. I’ll be there weekend 2. Red Rover going this year?
Camping or parking? Car camping will be a separate heart-shaped decal you put on your windshield. I don’t know about day parking since I’ve never done it. CTownND should know.
I made a massive Coachella playlist with the top songs from each artist! https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/coachella-2020/pl.u-9N9LL2bCqzdy6
When they played their free show during the Denver DNC, they gave like a 3 hr warning. Think that had a lot to do w security concerns tho.
No official word one way or the other. As with most things these days, pay attention to the Coachella subreddit. They’ll be posting any news as soon as it breaks.
Sounds like Miami has been trying to get rid of Ultra for a while and this is a convenient reason. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking.