My first Coachella experience

A couple of months ago, I attended my very first ~ COACHELLAAAAA!!! ~

*My Day 2 outfit, supporting BLACKPINK of course*

I attended Weekend 1 (April 14-16) with a group of friends and had quite the experience.

Was it just as wild, fun, and chaotic as I had imagined?

Well, it was definitely a fun experience but there was also a lot of waiting around, buying expensive things, and trying to survive in the hot and humid weather.

If you have always wondered what Coachella was about, feel free to read my experience below!

Why did I go? My “Yolo” Yes

About 10 months before Coachella 2023, I received a text from my friend that said, “Coachella pre-sale tickets are coming out! DID YOU WANT TO GO???”

As someone who’s NEVER been to Coachella before and has had this event on my bucket list for so long, I decided OKAY, I’M GETTING PRETTY OLD so WHY NOT!

Also, I had tickets to go in 2020 but we all know what happened there!!

It was a now or never decision so the yolo-side of my brain said, “Let’s doooo it” and then I would just have to figure out the details later on.

What is Coachella?

Born and raised as a West Coaster, I grew up knowing exactly what Coachella was but I discovered that not EVERYONE knows what it is, so I’ll add in a short description of it here!

Coachella is one of the biggest music festivals around the world located in Indio, California. It is a 3-day event and you can purchase tickets for either the first weekend or the second weekend. We chose to go on the first weekend!

Coachella is also HUGE amongst the online influencer world so a lot of people like to dress up in crazy ‘fits and and make a whole experience out of it.

Lots of famous artists appear on the line-up but the line-up doesn’t get released until about a month before the event so it’s a big risk purchasing the ticket if you don’t like any of them.

However, Coachella’s reputation has always been pretty good as they had headliners like Beyoncé and Ariana Grande, and surprise guests like Justin Bieber, in the past.

There are also a toooon of rising stars who perform at Coachella so it’s pretty fun to listen to new types of music and see if you vibe with it.

Why didn’t Slam go?

Slam is the human I decided to marry in November and then ditch for this Coachella trip. HAHAHA

But hey! We asked him :)

When we asked Slam whether he wanted to come to Coachella, he said no. We asked him several times after and there was even one person that dropped out but he was adamant that he didn’t want to go as it wasn’t his vibe.

Also, Slam and I were planning to go on our late honeymoon to Europe that same year for a couple of months so he wanted to save his leave for that time instead.

He is resonsibleeeee!

Ironically, he ended up attending Ultra Australia in Melbourne the exact same weekend I was at Coachella and we both had fun together (but at different locations). HAHA.

Andddd he enjoyed it! He’s just a smart boy because he probably saved tons of money going to a local event heh.

Who did you go with?

I went with a couple of close friends, D and R! One was my bridesman and the other is a uni friend who used to live a 5 min drive from my old house! I’ve known D for 10 years and R for 14 years (omg, yooo we old!). And then since we had one extra ticket, D invited his “cousins” so they ended up buying another ticket so both of them could go.

I put “cousins” in quotation marks because we found out on the trip they weren’t even his cousins but his family friends from way back when. HAHA.

They were a chill and funny couple that moved to California recently from Canada. We had a lot of fun with them bonding over the weekend despite not knowing them for too long!

We all ended up dressing out in similar outfits on the first day!

So, how was it?!?

Okay, honestly - Day 2 was my favourite day because I got to see BLACKPINK perform and they were SOOO GOOD!

I knew all of the songs (mostly!) except for a couple of new songs they performed but imagine me screaming and dancing my lungs out with my friends.

I took zero photos of myself at the concert but there are several videos of me obnoxiously singing so those can be shared on another day. :)

Day 1 was horrific as we did a LOT of waiting and I wasn’t feeling too well.

The number of times we waited include:

2 hours - waited for the shuttle bus to come from a hotel in Palm Springs
1 hour - Uber’d to Coachella cause the shuttle bus took too long to come
30 min - waited to get our ID wrist bands and assigned lockers
1 hour - waited for Blink 182 to perform their famous songs but they kept playing songs we didn’t know AHHAHA
2 hours - waited in line to purchase merchandise (this is when I wasn’t feeling well and just went silent lol, but I ended up buying a ton of merch cause yolo LOL)
1 hour - tried to enjoy Bad Bunny’s performance but the transitions weren’t the greatest and the the fireworks went off at the wrong times - LOL, I just put this comment in here because it was a part of our Day 1 lol
1 hour - another hour spent going home via the shuttle bus

So really, that was a good 8-9 hours of ‘meh’ time. But at least we spent it together (HAHHA, ** suffered together!)

**Day 3 was also OKAYYY.**

Chill vibes but it was hella hot.
There was no shade so we sat behind the shadows of the large sculptures at Coachella to prevent ourselves from getting heat stroke.
I just remember lying in the grass and vibing to the music.

Nearing the end of the day, we found a hidden trance room (not an open stage like the rest of the stages) and danced for a bit there.

Then we scurried over to Frank Ocean’s performance to end the day with a hurrah!

And if you have been following any of the Frank Ocean news at Coachella, you would have seen that he didn’t exactly meet a lot of his fans’ expectations…

In fact, I felt like I was watching a pre-recorded video that was just shared on the large screens and I didn’t see him come out…

I mean, we sat waaaay in the back because we didn’t want to be squished in between the crowds but even the vibe was really off as we waited for him to come out for his set.

I ended up falling asleep waiting for him to come out (pretty sure his set started 50 minutes after it was supposed to start) and even fell asleep during his performance as well.

What a way to end Coachella!!!

Was I mad and wanted to run away to ANY other stage to enjoy the performances there? Yes, maybe.

Another couple of hours wasted that I can never get back. Lol.

So was Coachella worth it?

From my write-up above, do you think it was worth it?!

Oh, I forgot to mention the food prices were insane.

My favourite prices have to be a cup of lemonade for $15 USD, a slide of pizza for $18 USD, and some chicken chow mein for $30 (that was half filled in the Chinese takeaway container).

The lemonade was 200% worth it as we got another one the next day cause it was a freaking, hot day.

Another funny not-so funny moment was paying for the American Express Ferris wheel rides.

Two of our friends had AMEX credit cards so they could ride for free but if you didn’t have an AMEX then you had to pay $15 USD for the ride.

Little did we know, if you went into the Coachella app into the “AMEX” section, you could actually claim a FREE ride (even if you weren’t an AMEX customer HAHAHA).

They needed to have advertised that better. Especially the ticket-people! Dang, money-making machines!

Sooooo, was Coachella worth it?!!!

Oh right, I didn’t answer this. AHAHHA

I mean, I think for me…. it was a one and done experience. It was on my bucket list and I got to do it.

Sucks Slam missed out but that was his choice! Hahaha

To see BLACKPINK and experience Coachella with old and new friends, I’d say, “YEEES!!!” It was worth it. :)

I had a lot of fun and created core memories for life. It was even more fun that we latched on a trip to LA/Joshua Tree for the days leading up to Coachella!

*Us enjoying a mini vacation at Joshua Tree National Park*

Whenever I hear music from BLACKPINK, Calvin Harris, Charlie XCX, Porter Robinson… I’m instantly transported back to the good moments there and laugh at all of the goofy moments.

Oh! And bonus points goes to this song (play at 1:40) as I remember dancing across grassy fields to this song when we had to walk to another stage.

Loooooove!

Hope that gave you a little perspective of Coachella and if you want to attend it in the future, I’d say go for it! Just be mentally prepared to wait around and spend a lot!!

xoxo, knd.