This year, I decided to go to Coachella at the last minute. Shockingly, my own mother wanted to go (because sheâs cooler than me, I guess) and had extra tickets through a friend. My UCLA friends decided to go at the last minute as well, two of them buying tickets at the box office on Friday, after we took the trek down to Palm Springs. Despite my hesitations about going this year (I even wrote an article about why I didnât think it was worth it), it was a worthwhile experience that both surprised me and fulfilled me in many ways.Â
the Venue is smaller than I thoughtâ but thatâs okay
Known as one of the biggest and greatest music festivals around the world, I was expecting Coachella to be incredibly expansive and honestly obnoxiously huge. It really isnât. Standing in the middle of the iconic rainbow tower, you can see everything: the main stage, the Do Lab in the back, the Ferris wheel, the iconic Sahara stage, and more. I was surprised that all the landmark spots were so condensed. However, Iâm not sure I would want it any other way. Since there is so much going on every stage, I found myself still having to trek from one end to the other pretty often, which took a toll on my energy and my feet. Despite everything being within eyesight, the grounds are huge. Invest in some shoe insoles and bring a water bottle, for sure.Â
The 2025 lineup was way better than expected
Funnily enough, I wrote a HerCampus article about why the 2025 Coachella lineup made it NOT worth it this year. Oops. While I personally listen to an obscene amount of music (which made it so I already knew many artists performing), my concerns were that the lineup just didnât seem Coachella-worthy, given the hype of the music festival. I was pleasantly surprised. There were so many amazing artists I had to miss because they were playing at the same time at different stages. There was never a dull moment where I did not have somewhere I could go. Even if there were artists that I didnât know, they were still usually quite amazing. Way to contract myself!Â
the concert set productions were insane
I have been to other festivals before, and while the performances were engaging and also visually compelling, but nothing I have seen amounts to the elaborate, intricate productions that nearly every artist had at Coachella. While Lady Gagaâs unforgettable performance might be an outlier (which some call one of the greatest Coachella productions of all time), many artists put what seems like millions into their sets, especially on the main stages (like Green Day, Megan Thee Stallion, Missy Elliot, Post Malone to name a few). You really are paying for a unique experience; I canât imagine any other festival has this many performances that seem like they could be equal or bigger than these singerâs own performances on their own tours.
Weekend 1 and Weekend 2 are different but mostly the same
Some people donât even realize that Coachella goes on for two weekends. I went to Weekend 2, which is apparently known for having less influencers and more âtrue music fans,â an idea that many artists teased during their performances (if that’s true, I can’t say). While this may be true, I donât think there is a huge difference between the weekends, at least in terms of if it mattering when you go. I do believe that the first weekend had a younger crowd, but there were still lots of young people on Weekend 2. This year, the weather was significantly cooler, albeit windier, on Weekend 2 in comparison to the 100 degree+ weather on Weekend 1, but that is hard to predict. What I did not realize, however, is that often the lineups are actually not exactly the same, which is something to take note of. The biggest difference for Coachella 2025 to me was that, hilariously, FKA Twigs was replaced by Weezer on Weekend 1 and Ed Sheeran on Weekend 2: two wildly different but awesome artists. I am ecstatic that Weekend 2 got Ed, though.Â
To finish up, I was surprised about how many of the outfits lacked the extravagance that they had back in 2016, and I hope that the basic festival fits go out of style and people go all out again one day. Overall, Coachella is honestly awesome, and I get why so many people find it a worthy investment to keep coming back year and year again.