COACHELLA 2015! BOOM OR BOOM?
When it comes to the Massive California-based Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival, there is no calm before the storm, or, for that matter, a calm left it's wake. The festival has become a force of it's own in the past few years, now almost resembling a circus maximus or Hollywood Blockbuster in the purest sense of mass appeal. Coachella is also social media fire; it travels along the feeds of celebrities (think Jared Leto), longtime fans, first timers, and passionate detractors alike on social media.
For the record, I have attended Coachella in the past, but when I attended some years ago, there was no dedicated H&M fashion line catered to droves of nationwide potential and wannabe Coachella devotees. The H&M collection seeks to promote the fashion - and therefore whole culture of Coachella, with it's haute-boho-meet-faux native American/desert vibe. While examining the clothes, I could hear the screams and diatribes of potential Coachella detractor’s voices emerge in my thoughts; particularly the trope of former consecutive Coachella attendees who deride the obvious commerciality of the whole operation as it is before.
If you look on social media right now, the responses can range from blasé (think, "Oh whatever Coachella is so commercial/mainstream) to anger and outright rage (think "It's so expensive now!" and "Brochella is overrun by parents and poseurs now!! Or "WTF, Coachella is dead/over etc.!!"). There is evidence of these types of attitudes all over; I invite you to seek them out on your own on the dreadful social media platform of your choice.
There is a constant struggle behind the cultural ownership of artistic spectacles: when people become enamored by a certain event or cultural happenstance, it is modern human nature to "drop the flag" of exclusivity, so to speak. To draw some parallels between some social theory and massive public spectacles; in this case, Coachella, of course.
Some of you may be familiar with E.M. Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation Theory, a general theory that states that certain societies can be grouped into percentiles based on their willingness to adopt "new" or "innovative" factors or happenstances into their lives, and how certain phenomena or ideas reach the mainstream through different waves of "adopters."
The examples are numerous, but the most relevant example could probably be ascertained by thinking about commercial products like smart phones or computer tablets, with the "innovators" marking a small percentage under 3% and "early adopters" ranking approximately 14%. In basic, when a thing reaches about 49% adoption, it reaches the mainstream.
To relate this theory Coachella, I invite you to imagine that the festival, which has been around since 1999 (at around $50 for the ticket and, and in the early years drew consistent attendees amongst it's varied stages of days and combinations of artists and stages. By 2007 the festival was a whole weekend. From there, the capital project increased exponentially over the years to reach the pinnacle of its current existence in which the festival boasted 579,000 attendees and grossed 75 million dollars in two weekends. Perhaps since 2008 or 2009 it has been in the mainstream outside of Southern California, and, in my opinion, for the project to survive, it was imperative that it eventually married the mainstream.
Why? Because the nature of capital initiatives at this level, culturally relevant or not, are simply boom or bust, just like everything else in a massive capital market. The organizers at Goldenvoice had to work hard to make the festival user-friendly and innovative in order to survive, as all things that go through the innovation theory must do in order to not be passed up by other innovations.
And while the droves of teenyboppers and fraternity brothers arriving on Coachella’s doorsteps in the late 2000's may have begun to annoy the halo-headed hipsters greatly, the fact is that commercialization is the only way to avoid complete failure.
Let's go back to 1999, where Coachella emerged almost immediately after the angst-ridden Woodstock '99, a great example of this sort of cultural/commercial failure. Woodstock 99' was not able to gain it's mainstay because of it's obvious chaos, disorder, and revulsion by the mainstream -but it all paved the way for more mellow, and hopefully pluralistic cultural gatherings such as Coachella to thrive.
And if Coachella stayed a fairly niche gathering of returning attendees, it could always have the possibility of heralding an inclusive implosion or failure just like Woodstock 99'. Instead, the organizers of Coachella have bought insurance with increasing commercialization. Does this sound bad to you?
Well, in regards to detractors, I would suggest attempting to join the likes of other innovators and either seek out a newer, more innovative gathering/festival, or, in the true sense of innovation, start your own. This is the cycle for which new cultural events emerge. If you are, for instance, interested in an event that is about to cascade into the mainstream I would suggest looking at Burning Man, which started on a beach in 1986 and now boasts 66,000 attendees in the middle of the Nevada desert. We'll see how that goes since they have tried greatly to cap their new attendees.
Coachella is fine. There are great music artists who man the multiple stages. It's fun you'll have fun if you are going (or hopping the fences) - but you must accept the nominally bougie environs and hefty price-tag that it all entails. I went and had a great time - I suggest you go with a group of max 4 friends in order to not get separated; it can and will happen. Drink water and wear sunscreen.
I believe that Coachella is around to stay, faux-pas headdresses, wayfarers, and all.
