WTF is... Coachella?

A lowdown-of-sorts on the music festival in the desert from someone who has actually been.

This weekend we are escaping to Palm Springs, in the desert. It's a two-hour drive on a good day and a five-hour drive on a bad one. So far, so LA. For the uninitiated, Palm Springs is full of cute mid-century modern architecture and beautiful mountain scenery and is generally much hotter in temperature than LA. You go there to lie by a pool with a glass in hand and do little else. In other words, whoever invented the hashtag #RoséAllDay had definitely been to Palm Springs.

Palm Springs has a special place in my heart. It's my "happy place" if you will. It was the escape we needed when Chris was diagnosed with cancer; it was where we went to celebrate my pregnancy with Maggie. When Chris and I first went for the weekend, right before Covid, we stayed in a dog-friendly boutique hotel. Sebastian barked so much when we dared to go out to the not-so-dog-friendly restaurant without him, we ended up having to order dinner to the room. Yes, we were held hostage by a dog. 

We have since discovered a doggie daycare in Palm Springs called 'The Village Pup'. I may have mentioned this before. They have a 'puppy cam' so you can watch your mutt sunning themselves via an app on your phone and there's also an award for 'dog of the month'. At Christmas, Santa comes to visit. The reason I know this is because we now have three different photos of Sebastian in a sleigh sitting on Santa's lap taken on three consecutive years. Talk about 'happy place', Sebastian has had more vacations in the desert than any of us. He is yet to be named 'dog of the month.'

But anyway, I digress, as usual, with stories of dogs. There's another reason Palm Springs means so much to me. And that's because it was a huge part of my first LA experience, when I went there on a travel writing assignment for Marie Claire back in 2012. Yep, a lifetime before I would eventually move to 'Cali' (Chris cringes when I call it Cali so I continue to do so = #marriage) and build a family, I went to *drumroll* the Coachella festival. 

A ticket to Coachella (which takes place in April) is a big deal. At least it was, over a decade ago. It's a festival that always sells out, always has an epic line up (this year boasts Blur, Lana Del Rey, the reunion of No Doubt plus a load of others I'm not cool enough to have heard of) and the sun always shines. What's not to love? Back in the UK - the home of Glastonbury, Hunter wellies and pissing-down-rain - Coachella has always been a source of fascination; particularly in magazine-land. The Hollywood celebs! The pool parties! The fashun!

But what's it really like, for like, a regular person? Digging out the article I wrote for Marie Claire to jog my memory (#RoséAllDay + 12 years ago) here's what I can conclude:

Me at Coachella, another lifetime ago: I’m pretty sure there was neat vodka in that water bottle.

It's super spenny. 

No?! Really?! I know, any excuse for my favourite LA topic of conversation, right? But first and foremost, to really experience Coachella, you can't just buy a ticket and rock up with a tent and hope for the best. I mean you can, but... "AS IF!" In the words of Cher in Clueless, "This is California, not Kentucky." Most people check into a nearby $$$$ hotel so they can cool off by a pool or stay on site in one of the $$$$ Coachella lodgings. I stayed in a boujee air-conditioned tent with a double bed, a mini fridge and a power point for my hair straighteners. But that was fully-comped because I was on a press trip. (I know.) Like I said, it was another lifetime ago!

It's too hot to even watch bands.

We're talking 40 degrees (C) / 100 degrees (F) in the afternoon. You won't look or feel like a honey-skinned influencer in a crochet bikini and fedora, you'll be a lethargic, hungover, sweaty mess. We had golf buggies to drive us from our campsite over to the main stages (I know) and even that felt like too much hard work.  But some of my fondest memories are of lying in a shaded hammock in the campsite, drinking full-fat Coke and talking shit with Nat, a girl I'd just met, who would become one of my closest friends. And isn't that what festivals are really about? 

You can't watch bands and drink alcohol.

Sorry, what? Yeah, that was the biggest shock to a boozy British festival veteran like me (to give myself my official title). You can't walk around with drinks! There are bars you can go to on the festival site where you can certainly hear the music from, but you have to drink up before going anywhere near the stage. So naturally, we filled up plastic bottles with vodka from Trader Joe’s in our tent and took them on site as ‘water’. The ferocious looking security guards didn’t bat an eyelid. You can take the girl out of Liverpool, etc.

You probably won't see any celebs.

They'll be at their aforementioned $$$$ hotels, in the (very separate) VIP area or at some fashun brand’s private party - anywhere but slumming it in the moshpit (do they even still call it that?) with vodka they’ve sneaked in from Trader Joe’s. I think I only saw one celebrity when I was there - Melanie Griffith. The glamour! She was so tiny I thought it was a child sat next to me, until I spotted the ‘Antonio’ tattoo on her bicep.

… But you'll have a story to tell. 

Well, I’m still talking about it, aren't I?