- 70% of Coachella ticket sales are from US western regions.
- 2020 festival cancellation cost the local economy $700 million.
- $1,4 million: The cost of a premium Coachella Keys Collection NFT in 2022.
- 125,000 people attended Coachella daily in 2022.
- Coachella 2022 tickets for Weekend 1 sold out in 75 minutes.
- 750,000 people attended Coachella and Stagecoach events in 2022.
- 43 million people viewed Coachella related posts on social media platforms.
- The majority of Coachella attendees are 15-29 years old.
The Coachella Music and Arts Festival has grown exponentially from its early beginnings in 1999. Today, it’s the biggest, most profitable music festival in the US.
Held in the Coachella Valley in the southern California desert, the festival is now a must-attend cultural event loved with religious fervour by music lovers, culture vultures and fashionistas alike. It’s also a popular celeb hangout that attracts the trendiest stars.
To give you better insight into what goes down at this coveted event, we’ve taken a closer look at Coachella Music and Arts Festival stats and facts for 2022/23. Discover what’s shaped this mega-event and what trends are predicted for the future now that Coachella is back.
Jump To a Section Below
- Background To Coachella 2022/23
- 2022 Coachella Ticket Prices
- Fun Facts About Coachella
- The introduction of Stagecoach:
- Musical updates:
- Capitalising on No-Chella:
- Coachella Festival’s Economic Benefits
- The Lowdown On Coachella 2022
- Marketing Trends Case Study
- What’s In Store for Coachella 2023?
- Coachella 2023 Trend Predictions
Background To Coachella 2022/23
The Coachella Music and Arts Festival is held over three days annually in April, followed by the three-day event called Stagecoach. The total 6-day events usually incorporate two weekends.
The festival not only features live music in a range of genres, it also features visual art in the form of interactive installations and sculptures. It’s a treat for music-loving fans of visual art as well as fashion gurus. Not to mention the celebrities and influencers who come to enjoy the vibe and to be seen and photographed by hordes of paparazzi.
At past festivals, Coachella has hosted Beyoncé, Prince, Snoop Dog, Madonna, Roger Waters, Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga and Billie Eilish, just to name a few.
The venue, the Empire Polo Club in Indio, is situated in the scorching Californian desert. But that doesn’t seem to put off fans or music mega stars. The small town of Indio is about a two-hour drive from Los Angeles and about another 30 minutes from Palm Springs.
2022 Coachella Ticket Prices
When Coachella first started, tickets were only $50 a day. But this has changed dramatically as the demand has skyrocketed.
Tickets are structured in tiers for 3-day passes. For example, Tier 1 cost $495 in 2022, Tier 2 ($522), Tier 3 ($549) and Tier 4 ($599). Three-day VIP tickets for Tier 1 were $1,035, $1,116 (Tier 2), $1,179 (Tier 3) and Tier 4 were $1,249.
According to Ticket Club, 70% of ticket sales came from the western region of the US, while 14% came from the southern states, 9% from the north-east and 7% from the midwest.
Fun Facts About Coachella
Coachella has plenty of history, as these fun facts about the event show. They also highlight how the festival has changed over the years.
The introduction of Stagecoach:
Stagecoach is a country music festival held the weekend after Coachella. It started in 2007 following the owner of the Empire Polo Club wanting to look for an additional income stream following the phenomenal success of Coachella.
Musical updates:
Initially, Coachella used to predominantly showcase electronic music. Things have changed a lot since then, with rock, dance or house music, rap and pop as part of the mix today.
The festival was also described as “a boy’s club” in the beginning until Icelandic music maverick Björk headlined the festival in 2002 and again in 2007. By the time Lady Gaga performed in 2017, Coachella was an open book, gender wise.
Capitalising on No-Chella:
Luxury brands such as Lacoste, Kiehls, H&M and fashion houses quickly spotted the marketing opportunities which Coachella presented. Many now host pool parties and soirees attended by fashionistas and celebrities. Usually these attendees don’t see one music act of the festival and have been given the moniker No-Chellas.
Coachella Festival’s Economic Benefits
Coachella Festival is a significant event in the Coachella Valley’s calendar. Many businesses view it as the cash cow before the quieter summer season settles in.
California, like many other US states, was hit hard by the restrictions and shut-downs that accompanied Covid-19 over 2020/2021. The state’s unemployment rate was the second highest in the US at 7,5% according to
The US Bureau of Labour Statistics. California’s unemployment rate remained the second-highest in the country.
Businesses across the Coachella Valley and nearby Palm Springs and La Quinta rely on the boost from the music festival for a wide range of economic sectors. These sectors include hospitality and accommodation, food and beverages, local sound engineers and concert professionals, and smaller micro enterprises such as food trucks.
According to the Los Angeles Times, neighboring hotels are booked up months in advance. Celebrities start arriving days before the festival and usually stay on for a bit to soak up the sunshine and take a rest from all the partying.
According to a study by the Development Management Group, Inc., the Coachella Festival attracted $600 million to the local economy back in 2019, bringing with it hundreds of jobs. Although it’s difficult to nail down exact figures for Coachella 2022, we can get an idea of revenues by looking at some slightly older statistics.
One such statistic brings home just what the Coachella Valley’s economy lost out on when the festival was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic. An estimate published by a ticketing company said that the cancellation of the festival hit the local economy to the tune of $700 million.
Given the demand for tickets, the festival must have pulled in well over $700 million by 2022. Figures for the forthcoming 2023 festival are expected to rise even higher.
To get an idea just how big Coachella is, a documentary made over two decades, “Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert” highlights performances and a behind-the-scenes look at some of the live performances that have shaped the festival.
The Lowdown On Coachella 2022
The main takeaway from Coachella 2022 was that the festival underwent a generational shift.
While the festival still attracts top music performers, detractors believe the festival is no longer about the music. They say it has been hijacked by social media entrepreneurs. In other words, bloggers, influencers, podcasters and Youtubers. That means Millennials and Generation Z’ers. This demographic grouping has attracted big brands and sponsors who use the event to market their brands and build their audiences.
The fact that Coachella is no longer a festival for obsessive music heads and hipsters is due to how the event has changed over the years. The growth in mass-market and social media platforms such as YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok have seen to that.
Hundreds of thousands of selfies taken at Coachella were posted on TikTok and other social media platforms. Coachella’s popularity has also done wonders for TikTok’s video sharing platform. Young performers seeking stardom view it as the go-to platform (along with YouTube) for marketing themselves.
Many attendees made use of the free supplied Coachella Non-Fungible Token (NFT) as a prop. The most expensive NFTs were called the Coachella Keys Collection. The collection encompassed 10 individual NFTs with bonuses such as lifetime passes to Coachella for one weekend in April annually, together with luxury amenities such as glamping and gourmet fine dining. Each sold in the six figures, totalling $1,474,000.
The 2022 festival accommodated 125,000 daily fans, and tickets for the event sold out within 75 minutes following the opening of sales on 14 January 2022. With acts such as Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and The Weeknd, the festival has shifted from underground indie-cool to welcome pop music for Generation Z’ers, TikTok and Spotify users.
In 2022, the festival drew in 750,000 attendees over the six-day run and tickets were sold out before the line-up had even been disclosed. Tickets are now sold in 3-day passes and the festival grounds currently cover close to 700 acres.
Marketing Trends Case Study
The festival’s marketing machine mainly makes use of Instagram and Twitter for its marketing. Both platforms are used for live streaming during the daily performances and events. This includes the provision of links so people at home can live stream from their armchairs.
With the sharing and live streaming, Coachella marketers reach millions of people globally.
Ordinarily, the festival generates 43 million engagements, translating into 14.3 million per day. A study found that 45% of attendees found Coachella from online advertising. 54% discovered Coachella from TV or radio advertisements.
These are figures and stats that marketers dream of.
What’s In Store for Coachella 2023?
Tickets for Coachella 2023 for April 14-16 and April 21-23 went on sale on 13 January. Weekend 1 sold out within days, but fans can place themselves on a waiting list on the festival’s official website. Tickets for the second weekend were still available, but won’t be for very long.
The main headliners for Coachella 2023 are Bad Bunny, all-women group, BLACKPINK and Frank Ocean. Other performers booked are Björk, Kali Uchis, Blondie, Gorillaz, Porter Robinson, Underworld, Rosalía, Eric Prydz, Becky G, Burna Boy and boygenius.
Ticket prices for the 22nd Coachella range from $549 and $649 for general admission, and shuttle combination tickets cost between $649 to $699. VIP tickets cost between $1,119 to $1,399.
Coachella 2023 Trend Predictions
The demographics of Coachella paint a picture of privileged (predominantly white), rich young people. The majority of attendees fall between the ages of 15-29. They are mostly from the middle and upper classes and share the same world outlook and ideologies.
A large part of the Coachella experience appears to lie in fashion. Women’s magazines devote columns of editorial about what to wear at this year’s festival and pages on analysing what fashion came out of the preceding Coachellas.
On the fashion side, fashion watchers are predicting velour tracksuits, denim, slip dresses, mini skirts, metallics, crop tops, platform shoes, crocheted anything, sheer dresses over swimsuits, cowboy boots, bold accessories and retro sunglasses or “sunnies” as the Gen Z’ers refer to them. Speaking of sunnies, green frames, tinted lenses, oversized 70s frames and athletic inspired frames are on trend for 2023.
Coachella is now so much more than a music and arts festival. People attend the event not only for the music and performances, but to make lasting memories and to get social proof of their status.
The festival’s immersive experiences are now valued almost more than the music line-up.
And judging by the year-on-year increase in revenues and profits, the Coachella Music and Arts Festival will continue to grow. Until it goes out of fashion when the next big thing comes along.
Sources:
http://www.dmgeconomics.com/
https://www.ticketnews.com/2020/04/coachella-postponement-local-economy/
https://fashioncoached-com.ngontinh24.com/articles/how-many-tickets-coachella-sold
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=expindsp
https://coachella.lyte.com/3703432
https://www.timeout.com/los-angeles/music/coachella
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1215&context=comssp
https://graziadaily.co.uk/fashion/outfit-ideas/coachella-outfits/
Nathan has always been captivated by numbers and patterns. With a Master’s degree in Statistics, he’s honed his skills to decipher complex data sets and discern market trends.
Over the past decade, Nathan has worked with various firms compiling and analyzing industry spending figures to forecast market movements.