Coachella becomes a world of augmented reality with 3D Live and Lucent Dossier Experience, headlining two surprise engagements on April 15 and 22 under the Sahara tent. (Photo by PRNewsFoto/3D Live)
The first weekend of Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, April 15-17, saw a Guns N’ Roses reunion, a surprise appearance from Rihanna during Calvin Harris’ set and an appearance from Ice Cube and N.W.A.. The mega-memorable first weekend will be followed with the second, April 22-24, featuring an identical lineup and offerings.
Last year, the festival, which is produced by Goldenvoice, grossed over $84 million from the sale of 198,000 tickets. In its fifth year as a two-weekend event, 2016 passes went on sale on Jan. 6 and sold out faster than ever. Front Gate Tickets is in its fifth year of handling Coachella’s ticketing, and the on-sale comes with a lot of preparation.
“Preparation for the on-sale consists of many hours of discussions about operations and marketing,” said Maura Gibson, president, Front Gate Tickets. “Front Gate’s Client Operations Manager then programs the event in the ticketing system and alerts our technical team of the date, time and expected load of the on-sale. We ramp up our servers to handle the load and make the process seamless for all, especially our clients and fans.”
For the past few years, Coachella has used RFID wristbands. Fans can register their wristband in advance of the festival, add their credit card and a pin and head to the festival. While onsite, they can use their wristband to enter the festival, any premium-access internal areas they purchased - like a VIP area – pay for their food, beverage and merchandise, and check out amazing sponsorship activations filled with promotions, surveys and giveaways. Front Gate did not handle RFID for Coachella but does for all their other festivals, including Lollaplooza and Bonnaroo.
Front Gate also supports tollbooths and camping access for Coachella. Gibson said reserved camping has been increasing in the past years for festivals and their pick-your-seat online tool has been a huge success for ticket buyers.
Venue Growth
Even after 15 years of hosting Coachella, Empire Polo Club Owner Alexander Haagen III and his son, Alexander Haagen IV, said the first day is always the hardest at the Indio, Calif., venue during Coachella.
“What always seems to happen is that day one is the hardest, because no matter how prepared everyone is there’s always things that you’re trying to get done at the last minute,” said Haagen IV. “And almost the whole weekend ends up that way where things are changing. Weekend two everyone settles into a groove, and it’s more chill for everyone who comes the second weekend, and also for the staff, because they’ve sort of worked out all the rough edges and can flow after that.”
Logistically, the Haagens reported a smooth first weekend, with the biggest challenge being getting 99,000 people in and then back out in a timely fashion.
“There are several meetings a day with the top people, and it’s constantly refining the day-to-day operations from meeting to meeting,” said Haagen IV. “From what happened during the blowout on Saturday night there are adjustments made for the following night. Things are adjusted daily. The coordination between all the agencies—whether it be the police or NOAA, every security company and medical company, traffic people, parking, camping—everybody has a voice and it’s an open forum and that’s how things get done.”
In between weekends major clean-up occurs to make the site ready for a new group of festival-goers.
“When you’ve had half a million people out on these fields and major equipment and cranes and backhoes and staging and everything, they take a beating,” said Haagen III. “The job right now is to clean every little bit of paper and every cigarette butt out, to aerate the fields and put gallons and gallons of water down on them to get them ready for the second Coachella group coming in and make it as fresh as we can.”
As the festival continues to grow, the site grows right along with it.
“The preparation is a little more every year,” said Haagen III. “We purchased additional property all around, so we’ve expanded the operations to try to open up the interior and leave more room for the public and move our service vehicles and equipment out to the peripheral and make it nicer inside.”
Between dates every year, they work to improve it, bringing in more trees, art and fountains, with the goal of wowing the people that come back every year.
“Goldenvoice has installed a lot more permanent facilities, like the permanent restrooms, which are beautiful, and shade structures and more food vendors and food choices,” said Haagen III. “That’s what’s visible. The back of house isn’t visible, but it’s very important.”
Roads have been widened to allow for better traffic flow. With over 4,000 people on site running the festival, it’s a necessity. Along with the addition of new property, the venue was also recently approved for a different kind of growth.
“We were approved by the city on the Wednesday night before Coachella to go ahead and expand it from 99,000 a day up to 125,000 a day,” said Haagen III. “That will be a big change next year. It probably won’t go up all at once, we’ll do it in increments, but it is a major change. Some of the additional land that we’ve purchased will go to the expansion of the facilities, and next year you’ll see changes, because the property will be pushed out east and opened up. A lot of the areas where the stages are will have a lot more room and a lot more grass in front of them”
Safety and Security
In the aftermath of recent events, heightened security measures were in place during the first weekend, but everything flowed nicely nonetheless.
“We felt it was one of the best shows so far in the last couple of years,” said Thushan Rajapaksa, senior vice president, Staff Pro. “It was very smooth, entrances were great, people were flowing in and we’re not looking to make any changes for week two. We felt that week one was great, and we’re just duplicating the same thing for the second weekend.”
In their seventh consecutive year at Coachella, Rajapksa said they send a team of over 1,000 people to provide security for the festival, and the first weekend went off without any major security issues.
“Any festival or special event, ingress and egress is important, but at Coachella the Goldenvoice production team and security team are some of the best teams I’ve seen, and we do thousands of events. They emphasized ingress and egress, and the first weekend was flawless. They’re pretty on it, which makes vendors like Staff Pro be on it.”
Already Rajapaksa said he’s received positive emails from satisfied attendees about their experience over the weekend, something he attributes to Goldenvoice’s influence.
“I’m really impressed with the Goldenvoice team,” said Rajapaksa. “They really spend time on making sure vendors like us understand the importance of creating a magical moment and memorable experiences for live audiences. I think that’s key, and that ideology coming from them makes the Goldenvoice-Staff Pro partnership a good one.”
The Big Wheel
For the sixth year, Ray Cammack Shows shipped La Grande Wheel out for both weekends. Last year, they had about 43,000 riders during Coachella and Stagecoach, a number Chris Lopez, vice president of Ray Cammack Shows, said they hope to surpass this year.
“First Weekend we were up just about one percent point in ridership, so that was good news,” said Lopez. “And the next weekend typically tends to be even better than the first, so it’s looking good.”
After an appearance at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, the biggest wheel in North America was transported out to Indio using eighteen 53-foot trailers, along with two ticket boxes that are positioned out front.. They start setting up a week prior to opening to the public and send a 12-person team to ensure everything works smoothly.
“New this year, Coachella has put their logo on it,” said Lopez. “Whereas RCS is still on the front, there’s a couple columns where we had it rewrapped with their logos and an identifying logo in the center of the wheel. It looks really good.”
Lopez said there are currently no plans to add more rides to Coachella, but if the need ever arises, he has more than enough equipment. Based on feedback, attendees enjoy the wheel and they’ve never had any issues there.
“With more and more music festivals and different things coming up, I really like it,” said Lopez. “It’s a one- shot deal, and it’s usually paid upfront and that sort of thing, so we welcome some of these music festivals. We also do Rock in Rio in May, and we welcome these types of new endeavors with the music business. It’s wonderful.”
What’s In Store
From Coachella’s inception to how far the festival has come today, the two products are almost opposites. Today, YouTube is live streaming the festival with 360-degree video and spatial audio, Lucent Dossier Experience is employing 3D Live technology for an augmented reality experience and festivalgoers will have sent more than four million texts related to Coachella when all is said and done. In addition to all the tech upgrades, for Haagen IV, the biggest change is the amenities.
“The experience for the customer has changed,” said Haagen IV. “It went from portable toilets to the only festival in the world that has built bathrooms for two weekends. Between that, the food services, the variety, the amount of shade structures, the VIP experiences and the camping options, those are all things that have changed. Year one there was basically a stage, fencing, a lot of port-a-potties, some white tents and normal vendors with crappy food. Now it’s a culinary experience, it’s a craft cocktail experience and it’s a refined, beautiful experience for everybody.”
The success of Coachella and other festivals hosted at Empire Polo Club opens the door for additional concerts. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that a three-night Oct. 7-9 event featuring the likes of Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones, was headed for the venue with Goldenvoice at the helm. Though Haagen III couldn’t confirm the report, he said they are always working with Goldenvoice on different types of product and ways to make their current festivals bigger and better.
“Nobody could have imagined from where we started that we’d end up where we are right now,” said Haagen III. “It’s come a long way, and our challenge right now is to keep making it better.”
Interviewed for this story: Alexander Haagen III and Alexander Haagen IV, (760) 342-2762; Chris Lopez, (800) 678-9908; Maureen Gibson, (310) 691-6913; Thushan Rajapaksa, (714) 230-7223