The two-weekend music and arts festival out in Indio, California Coachella – which has been featuring really cool artists of so many genres every spring – ranging from Chillwave and Shrim Hop to House and Dubstep for fifteen years since its inception in 1999 has once again percolated through every corporate radio station, internet forum, and college newspaper reminding many Pitchfork-readers and music nerds that starting on the weekend of April 11, it will be back with even more really cool artists of various genres.
The pre-sale tickets were officially released for purchase on January 10th, but if you are still thinking about going, you might have already missed out. Within two hours and thirty-seven minutes of their release, all of the tickets were already sold out, setting a new record for the desert festival. But as the festival, which was once a smaller concert that you couldn’t camp out at in its formative years, continues to grow in popularity, it has started setting other records too.
The price for a single General Admission ticket to spend a weekend in Indio sold for three hundred seventy five dollars. The highest the festival has ever charged for a General Admission ticket. The price bumped up a bit from last year, when the tickets were selling for three hundred forty nine . But just two years ago, which Radiohead was headlining in 2012, when the Coachella curators decided to split Coachella into two separate, identical weekends in order to give more fans a chance to buy tickets, the price was far lower at two hundred eighty five dolalrs. Some students here at Cerritos College felt the festival was asking for too much money from its fans.
“It’s the equivalent of a plane ticket to the east coast,” environmental science major, Vanessa Baracose said, “And I think I’d rather go visit family or friends and share my happiness with them.”
These general admission prices also don’t cover the additional fees that Coachella might be subject to paying such as car or tent camping which are both eighty five dollars, but do not cover overnight parking for your car (though paying for VIP parking at one hundred and fifty dollars would, as well as shuttle passes which are $60 to help transfer you around the festival or to and from the local hotels.
Either or, this year’s lineup will include prodigal 2015 Grammy nominees such as Fatboy Slim, AFI, Cross Cross Cross, and Washed Out, that will be sure to be washing out Coachella with their greatest hits.
Take it from psychology major Vanessa Torres, “I know the tickets can be kind of expensive,” she said, “but you have to realize what you’re paying for. All of my friends are going and there are going to be some really chill artists there together that you might not see together ever again. I know that it’s going to be a really chill, unforgettable weekend.”
