Coachella 2025’s first weekend has come and gone, and to say it was absorbing is an understatement. Like yearly, Coachella is its personal bubble, the place even whenever you arrive again to your campsite or lodge room and examine social media, tales flood in about particular visitors and unforgettable moments from the units you needed to miss.
With performances this yr from Lady Gaga, Charli XCX, Green Day, Travis Scott, and Submit Malone, plus Missy Elliott, Megan Thee Stallion, Weezer, The Prodigy, T-Ache, Mustard, Jimmy Eat World, Basement Jaxx, and (remarkably) Yo Gabba Gabba!, there merely wasn’t time to see everybody, and the times come and go quicker than you’d assume.
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The weekend turns into one large blur, an enormous mirage; although this yr, when you regarded round exhausting sufficient, you possibly can see previous the phantasm. A palm tree caught on fireplace from pyrotechnics. Campers waited hours within the searing warmth simply to get via safety. The financial system continues to tank. A pop star named d4vd tried “The Benson Boone” and this ended up happening. A number of occasions this yr, it regarded just like the bubble may actually burst, like Coachella’s magical spell may very well be damaged.
Fortunately, the magic did keep alive all through this weekend, and the occasion continued with among the pageant’s all time greatest — and in a minimum of one case, worst — performances in Coachella historical past. YouTube as soon as once more housed the livestream, so most particular person units are someplace on the web able to be streamed; however when you’re curious how the entire weekend felt from the grounds, right here’s what you didn’t see on the livestream at Coachella 2025.
— Paolo Ragusa
Affiliate Editor
A Hellish Kickoff on the Campgrounds
As any seasoned Coachella camper may let you know, Day Zero is usually a pleasant little juicer for the weekend. It’s the proper alternative to construct bonds along with your campmates, wander the grounds, bask in actions each authorized and in any other case, and mentally put together for the weekend. As daybreak breaks over Indio on Thursday morning, probably the most well-prepared campers start lining up their automobiles within the Polo Fields at 3:30am hoping to snag a chief spot with the closest stroll to the pageant entrance. The yearly custom begins with a two to three-hour wait as safety meticulously inspects every automobile, and as soon as they get the all-clear, campers race towards the rising desert solar to arrange their non permanent four-day properties to remodel the barren grass right into a bustling pageant group. However this yr, what ought to’ve been a pre-festival ritual shortly spiraled into unorganized chaos.
As an alternative of the manageable few hour wait, hundreds of campers discovered themselves shuffling alongside for as much as 12 hours simply to enter the campgrounds. As a result of excessively lengthy wait (assume 4 hours simply to maneuver a half mile), irritated campers had been compelled to take measures into their very own arms, getting out of their automobiles to direct site visitors, chopping off their water consumption in order that they wouldn’t really feel the necessity to pee, ordering supply meals service straight to their automobiles, or strolling a mile to the closest comfort retailer to re-up on recent provides.
It was a brutal kickoff to the vibes-are-up welcome occasion that Day Zero often brings. Our solely hope is that the lesson was realized Weekend One, and fellow Weekend Two campers can be blessed with an improved set of logistics. — Nicolle Periola
