Is the latest Coachella lineup enough to save one of the world's biggest music festivals?

3 days ago 3

Lady Gaga, Green Day, Post Malone and Travis Scott are undoubtedly major draw-cards for next year’s Coachella festival in the US. However, despite the headliners’ star-power — and Coachella’s status as one of the biggest contemporary music festivals in the world — questions have been raised about whether it’s enough to keep the juggernaut from folding.

It’s no secret the festival market is under threat. Locally, multiple events like Splendour in the Grass and Falls Festival cancelled their 2024 and 2025 runs, with commentators tying the pandemic, the cost of living crisis, and changes in fan behaviour to the cancellations.

Taking over Indio, California just outside of Los Angeles each April, Coachella draws just under 600,000 festival-goers across its two weekends, making it a cultural touchstone for the festival season.

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However, following a downturn in ticket sales last year, Coachella’s status is under threat. Tickets for this year’s Coachella were still available four days after going on sale, a stark contrast to the 40-minute sellout in 2015.

This year also marked the first year in 25 years that the festival didn’t sell out.

Speaking to a few industry sources, 7NEWS.com.au understands there are multiple factors at play when it comes to Coachella’s future.

The global pandemic and current cost of living crisis has led to a lack of early commitment from ticket buyers.

General admission passes cost around US$500, while travel and accommodation can set punters back thousands, and food and drink prices regularly make headlines. One couple cited two coffees and two burritos costing A$92 in 2023.

Dr Sam Whiting, a live music industry expert and Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University, told 7NEWS.com.au that post-pandemic, live music audiences have fundamentally changed.

“Both cost of living and the way we access and discover new music is having a profound impact on live music events, with most people preferring safe bets over new experiences,” said Dr Whiting.

“In Australia, more and more punters are saving their pennies for a few large arena concerts a year, and less are attending multi-genre festivals. This raises questions as to whether classic genre-bending festivals, such as California’s Coachella, will survive.”

Influencer takeovers and brand fatigue has resulted in a change in audience behaviour at Coachella.

The festival has been called out as a commercialised influencer event in recent years. This follows the influx of content creators seen posing with band activations in VIP sections, and not singing along.

Chappell Roan famously called out the VIP section at Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco in August. While performing her hit song Hot to Go!, (which features a signature dance her fans do together), she scolded them: “It’s so weird that VIP thinks they’re so way too cool to do this!”

Live music industry expert Dr Sam Whiting said one way to account for changes in audience behaviour is with strong headliners that can carry a festival lineup on their own.

“Coachella have long adhered to this model,” he said, “with Lady Gaga, Green Day, Charli XCX, Post Malone, and Travis Scott announced as headliners for the 2025 edition. However, the question is whether these giants of pop can carry the rest of what is an extremely eclectic lineup, featuring primarily up-and-coming talent rather than established artists with dedicated fanbases.”

Coachella’s partnership with YouTube may have resulted in potential punters opting for the free ‘Couchella’ instead.

The partnership with the streaming giant may offer high-quality livestreams and expand Coachella’s global reach, but it may also be driving declining ticket sales.

After introducing live-streaming through YouTube in 2011, the festival sold out in just three hours in 2012, compared to three days in the previous year.

Over a decade later though, more budget-conscious punters are forgoing the event in real life. Some commentators believe that watching the festival for free, from the comfort of your own home, erodes the festival’s exclusivity.

“We’ve all heard stories from aunties and uncles about something amazing they saw at a festival during their youth, and how you just had to be there,” wrote Rowan Byers in a piece on Goat.

“You could argue that YouTube is killing that exclusivity, and perhaps everything that makes these events so unique and personalised. For those who have secured a ticket (at an astronomical price) and flown across the country (or world) to see their favourite artist perform might start to feel wronged if there are viewers at home who can tap into a similar experience for free.”

The increasing democratisation of music and the rise of niche tastes have significantly impacted Coachella’s ability to curate a universally appealing lineup.

Thanks to streaming services and affordable distribution options for artists, more acts than ever are breaking through in various genres and subgenres. For Coachella and music festivals as a whole, satisfying a diverse audience with increasingly specific preferences is harder than ever.

This fragmentation of the music landscape means that there are now more “idols” catering to smaller, dedicated fan bases, rather than a few universally recognised headliners.

Coachella isn’t alone in its fight to navigate a complex web of musical tastes, and balance established acts with emerging talents across a wide spectrum of genres.

Whiting told Coachella “functions more like a music industry showcase event than a consistent brand these days”.

“[It provides] emerging talent with an opportunity to break new audiences, as was the case for Sabrina Carpenter in 2024, who debuted her world-beating single ‘Espresso’ live at the festival,” he said.

“It remains to be seen whether this approach will continue to pay off, but we can certainly say that Coachella continues to push the boundaries for new talent, offering a few safe bets alongside the most-hyped acts of 2024.”

The lineup announcement yesterday did bring about a few silver linings for Australian music fans though.

Not only does the lineup feature four Australian acts: Amyl and the Sniffers, Parcels, Glass Beams, and SPEED, attendees of the sold out Laneway Festival will get a local primer from a few Coachella performers.

Ticketholders for February’s St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival are in for a treat, with performances by underground pop sensation-turned-global-star Charli XCX, Stranger Things actor Joe Keery’s synth-pop project Djo, and Atlanta singer-songwriter Clairo — all just two months before their scheduled appearances at Coachella.

Artists often craft a specific ‘festival set’ for the early months of the year, tailored for stops at multiple global festivals. This means the performances by Charli XCX, Djo, and Clairo at Laneway are likely to showcase similar setlists and production that they’ll bring to the iconic California event.