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It got pretty full, but not until the last minute. And YG was only okay.
I got to YG 30 mintutes early while Playboi Carti was still doing his last few songs. Not too bad compared to what I thought. Carti had a few open mosh pit sections that you could walk through to get to the middle of the stage. Once you wiggle through the outside bleed, its easy to get a great spot (you won't get up front but smack in the middle).
YG was way more than "okay". YG had an amazing set, the crowd was amazing if you were actually in the thick of it, idk how it was on the outer portions of the crowd. If you're a YG fan you're going to have a blast, if you're not big on YG you'll still have a blast if you're looking to get down. It was very ratchet in a good way.
One more thing, new Sonora location was perfect. It was never empty when I was there. Most sets I saw were about 70% full (some a bit more, some a bit less), which is a ton better from the like 25% sets from the past 2 years. But def a ton more traffic going there. I hope they keep the Mojave -> Gobi -> Sonora all next to each other next year. That's as good as it'll get with stage convenience.
New Heineken was weird at first, but having it open instead of closed was cool because you could easily catch someone like The Roots without actually being IN the Heineken tent. You could listen and see from the bathroom area or the back of the central food market by Hawkins.
Interpol & The Walkmen 11.23 I Am Morbid/Suffocation 11.26 King Diamond 11.29 Sadistic Intent/Massacre 11.30 70K Tons Of Metal 2025 Hell's Heroes 2025 Sick New World 2025 Maryland Deathfest 2025
It got pretty full, but not until the last minute. And YG was only okay.
I got to YG 30 mintutes early while Playboi Carti was still doing his last few songs. Not too bad compared to what I thought. Carti had a few open mosh pit sections that you could walk through to get to the middle of the stage. Once you wiggle through the outside bleed, its easy to get a great spot (you won't get up front but smack in the middle).
YG was way more than "okay". YG had an amazing set, the crowd was amazing if you were actually in the thick of it, idk how it was on the outer portions of the crowd. If you're a YG fan you're going to have a blast, if you're not big on YG you'll still have a blast if you're looking to get down. It was very ratchet in a good way.
I’m a fan of YG. But I saw a whole shitload of rappers tearing off clean lyrics this weekend and he wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t bad, but he didn’t measure up.
I got to YG 30 mintutes early while Playboi Carti was still doing his last few songs. Not too bad compared to what I thought. Carti had a few open mosh pit sections that you could walk through to get to the middle of the stage. Once you wiggle through the outside bleed, its easy to get a great spot (you won't get up front but smack in the middle).
YG was way more than "okay". YG had an amazing set, the crowd was amazing if you were actually in the thick of it, idk how it was on the outer portions of the crowd. If you're a YG fan you're going to have a blast, if you're not big on YG you'll still have a blast if you're looking to get down. It was very ratchet in a good way.
I’m a fan of YG. But I saw a whole shitload of rappers tearing off clean lyrics this weekend and he wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t bad, but he didn’t measure up.
Post by coachillin on Apr 15, 2019 18:12:31 GMT -5
Interesting weekend - didn't quite feel the hype as much as previous years (6th year in a row). For the most part I think the crowds were a lot more responsive and into the sets, with a substantial decrease in phones (minus Ariana). Some thoughts/opinions on the crowds:
Best Crowds: Maggie Rogers, Lizzo, 1975. The crowd hype for Maggie was unreal, I heard numerous people say it was one of the loudest Coachella crowds they had heard. Lizzo also had similar fanfare but she really knew how to work the crowd as well. I'm not sure how big the crowd was for 1975 but they definitely seemed very into the set.
Most Disappointing Crowds: Tame Impala, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande. The Tame crowd was small and most the people were sitting once it reached the first set of poles. Billie's crowd very extremely responsive towards the end of the set but pretty tame for the first half. I was pretty close to Ariana's stage and I was shocked at how terrible the crowd was for a majority of the set. It may be a combination of the ridiculous amount of phones and the staring at the screen, but I feel like you could even tell on her face that the crowd wasn't responding. She'd try to get them to sing or dance and nothing would happen.
Largest Crowds: Maybe some of you from home can comment better on this, but it seemed like Ariana, Zedd, Cudi and Billie had the largest crowds. Although, I think Billie had to of lost at least 25% of her crowd because of the delays.
This was my 15th year and we had a blast as always. There's just so much cool stuff to check out and they really do a great job on the customer experience. I don't think I had to wait in line for anything except food a couple times and even those waits were short. The new layout putting the Sonora, Gobi and Mojave next to each other is fantastic. So easy to hop between those three. My musical highlights:
Friday - Los Tucanes de Tijuana (such a happy crowd), Anderson Paak, Janelle Monae, Polo & Pan (should've stayed for all of them instead of cutting over for the end of Blackpink), Beach Fossils.
Saturday - The Roots were on point (while I don't like Heineken, it's a nice little venue), Aphex Twin, Weezer, Parcels.
Sunday - Lizzo was the highlight of the day for sure, Cola Boyy was a lot of fun, Iceage was cool, Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
From industry talk, seems like this will be their worst year financially in a while. They might get more aggressive with the radius clause blocks next year if that’s true.
I got to YG 30 mintutes early while Playboi Carti was still doing his last few songs. Not too bad compared to what I thought. Carti had a few open mosh pit sections that you could walk through to get to the middle of the stage. Once you wiggle through the outside bleed, its easy to get a great spot (you won't get up front but smack in the middle).
YG was way more than "okay". YG had an amazing set, the crowd was amazing if you were actually in the thick of it, idk how it was on the outer portions of the crowd. If you're a YG fan you're going to have a blast, if you're not big on YG you'll still have a blast if you're looking to get down. It was very ratchet in a good way.
I’m a fan of YG. But I saw a whole shitload of rappers tearing off clean lyrics this weekend and he wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t bad, but he didn’t measure up.
Fair in that aspect, but I dont think most people go to YG expecting that lol they just want to be able to shake something and act a fool and he definitely delivered on that If Anderson .Paak counts as a rapper then he was by far the best rap performance
I imagine adding Kanye West three weeks out from the festival did not help the situation. Even with it just being Sunday Service he is an expensive guy and costs a pretty penny
Interesting weekend - didn't quite feel the hype as much as previous years (6th year in a row). For the most part I think the crowds were a lot more responsive and into the sets, with a substantial decrease in phones (minus Ariana). Some thoughts/opinions on the crowds:
Best Crowds: Maggie Rogers, Lizzo, 1975. The crowd hype for Maggie was unreal, I heard numerous people say it was one of the loudest Coachella crowds they had heard. Lizzo also had similar fanfare but she really knew how to work the crowd as well. I'm not sure how big the crowd was for 1975 but they definitely seemed very into the set.
Most Disappointing Crowds: Tame Impala, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande. The Tame crowd was small and most the people were sitting once it reached the first set of poles. Billie's crowd very extremely responsive towards the end of the set but pretty tame for the first half. I was pretty close to Ariana's stage and I was shocked at how terrible the crowd was for a majority of the set. It may be a combination of the ridiculous amount of phones and the staring at the screen, but I feel like you could even tell on her face that the crowd wasn't responding. She'd try to get them to sing or dance and nothing would happen.
Largest Crowds: Maybe some of you from home can comment better on this, but it seemed like Ariana, Zedd, Cudi and Billie had the largest crowds. Although, I think Billie had to of lost at least 25% of her crowd because of the delays.
I was in the middleish for Ariana and our section was pretty turnt up for her set. The front seemed really quiet though for sure. The cheering wasn't super loud and they didn't respond a ton to her asking the crowd stuff, which was weird. Tame's crowd was so dead it was odd, I felt kinda bad for Kevin Parker when he was talking to the crowd even though they played so well. Ari, Billie, Cudi, Zedd sound about right for largest crowds (told you guys Cudi would have one of the largest draws after Ari and Billie) Maggie's crowd was special. I've never seen a crowd give so much love to an artist before, it was mind blowing. The 1975 fans gave super love too but Maggie's crowd was so loud about it, I almost skipped her set, so glad that I didn't
I imagine adding Kanye West three weeks out from the festival did not help the situation. Even with it just being Sunday Service he is an expensive guy and costs a pretty penny
The Sunday Service presumably adds a bunch of logistical costs too. And it doesn't seem like Kanye really moved the needle on ticket sales, so that was probably a bad investment. Getting Ariana the day before the lineup release can't have been cheap either, especially given she had to cancel other shows to make it happen. Add the fact that she had already sold out three arena shows in LA a few weeks from now and that's gotta be a less profitable investment than most headliners would be under normal circumstances (not saying booking her was a bad idea - moreso that it seems like it would've been better for them if scheduled in her tour without competing local arena shows).
From industry talk, seems like this will be their worst year financially in a while. They might get more aggressive with the radius clause blocks next year if that’s true.
How would this help? They were lacking star power and or special acts compared to previous years
All 3 headliners should be #3 headliners mixed with 2 bigger names. I know that was the plan, but it didn’t happen.
Get at least 2 special or huge names next year to headline
From industry talk, seems like this will be their worst year financially in a while. They might get more aggressive with the radius clause blocks next year if that’s true.
How would this help? They were lacking star power and or special acts compared to previous years
All 3 headliners should be #3 headliners mixed with 2 bigger names. I know that was the plan, but it didn’t happen.
Get at least 2 special or huge names next year to headline
Ariana has three sold out headlining shows in three weeks. That's 60,000 people in LA that might've gone to Coachella otherwise. BLACKPINK plays the Forum on Wednesday, a huge rare get made less-rare. Childish just played two nights in December. Weezer just played in January. FISHER/Chris Lake just played three sold out shows in February. Pretty sure there are others I'm missing.
A lot of the big draws had already sold tickets to their biggest local fans before the lineup came out. It's silly to think this wouldn't have a big impact on sales. Take away the above shows and I bet they move 20,000 more festival passes at least.
It’s clearly Game of Thrones returning the weekend of Coachella that hurt them the most. That’s 17 million people that would have gone if it wasn’t for the season premiere.
Financials are hardly a surprise. I think it's a multi-factor thing:
(1) All festivals seem to be doing significantly worse this year.
(2) They had two "weak" headliners. By the time Tame was filling in for Kanye they were probably still optimistic because Kanye as a *headliner* is an instant sell out, but then when that fell apart too they were in a bad spot. Ari is a huge headliner but as people have said, her tour had already been on sale when the announcement came so that didn't have that much of an effect rather than if it had been her tour kick off.
(3) Looking at nighttime Sahara...they had three rap acts back-to-back Saturday, four back-to-back Sunday. I get that rap is popular, but they had to have lost a lot of people to UMF and EDC.
(4) They've been cannibalizing their fest for years by saving top acts as exclusives for FYF, Pano, Just Like Heaven, Arroyo Seco. Look how quickly they moved JLH in LA...you'd think if the highlights (YYYs, Rapture reunion, etc) were at Coach that that would have been an extra 10K easy out of the 30K or whatever from JLH W1. But they wanted two fests.
(5) Less music, weaker subs. They legit only had five poster acts on the outdoor on Sunday. The Mojave was averaging 7-8 poster acts compared to 10-12 from prior years. The #2s and #3s have felt weaker these past few years in drawing power. I love Janelle but she's not really a #2 and her tour had already finalized. Compare that to #2s like The XX, Bon Iver, Sia, etc. In 2017 you had Future and Travis Scott as threes, two of the biggest rappers out there. It just feels like they are often aiming for "this is good enough" rather than "wow, we never thought Bon Iver would agree to sub".
How would this help? They were lacking star power and or special acts compared to previous years
All 3 headliners should be #3 headliners mixed with 2 bigger names. I know that was the plan, but it didn’t happen.
Get at least 2 special or huge names next year to headline
Ariana has three sold out headlining shows in three weeks. That's 60,000 people in LA that might've gone to Coachella otherwise. BLACKPINK plays the Forum on Wednesday, a huge rare get made less-rare. Childish just played two nights in December. Weezer just played in January. FISHER/Chris Lake just played three sold out shows in February. Pretty sure there are others I'm missing.
A lot of the big draws had already sold tickets to their biggest local fans before the lineup came out. It's silly to think this wouldn't have a big impact on sales. Take away the above shows and I bet they move 20,000 more festival passes at least.
Maybe, I get it for bigger names but I don’t know if it matters much for smaller or even mid names such as Pusha T, DVSN, Jauz..
A lot of people, such as myself, rather see tons of acts at a festival rather than dropping 40-50 for someone they like but don’t love
If I see tons of those names (Like but don’t love artists) missing from a poster, I will be discouraged to buy. Might push me to go to more concerts
Ariana has three sold out headlining shows in three weeks. That's 60,000 people in LA that might've gone to Coachella otherwise. BLACKPINK plays the Forum on Wednesday, a huge rare get made less-rare. Childish just played two nights in December. Weezer just played in January. FISHER/Chris Lake just played three sold out shows in February. Pretty sure there are others I'm missing.
A lot of the big draws had already sold tickets to their biggest local fans before the lineup came out. It's silly to think this wouldn't have a big impact on sales. Take away the above shows and I bet they move 20,000 more festival passes at least.
Maybe, I get it for bigger names but I don’t know if it matters much for smaller or even mid names such as Pusha T, DVSN, Jauz..
A lot of people, such as myself, rather see tons of acts at a festival rather than dropping 40-50 for someone they like but don’t love
If I see tons of those names (Like but don’t love artists) missing from a poster, I will be discouraged to buy. Might push me to go to more concerts
For the smaller artists, I generally agree. But the top 2-3 lines do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to moving tickets, and they had less exclusivity with those acts this year than they usually do.
