It’s that time of the year where bloggers and celebs are returning home after their trip to Palm springs, California, where the famous Coachella Music festival has been held over the last two weeks. The jealousy inducing snapchat stories and smug pics are now clogging up our Instagram feeds by bloggers who attended the world renowned music festival.
However, Coachella doesn’t seem to be all it’s cracked up to be and by looking under the surface it seems it’s more about celebs keeping up appearances. For upcoming bloggers and celebs, Coachella is not just a music festival, but an opportunity for them to build their following and build contacts.
Coachella is nothing like your standard Irish or UK festival. Yes, the line-up is fantastic with this year’s Coachella giving the stage to names like Beyonce, Eminem, The Weeknd and SZA. However, the whole vibe of Coachella seems to be more about blogger branding than the actual music itself.
Every year our favourite celebs and bloggers attend the star-studded festival where their followers count multiplies as a result of the cringy pictures in front of the famous ferris wheel. Irish Blogger Louise Cooney hit the 100K mark this weekend while at the festival.
The whole festival seems to be selfie central and more about the fashion and posing than enjoying the music on offer. Many celebs and bloggers including German blogger Masha Sedgwick have commented that Coachella is just an overcrowded, huge platform to see and to be seen simply because everyone is there.
The drinking culture is very different too. Over here, its deemed acceptable to drink yourself into oblivion beside some random tent because you lost your friends 3 hours ago. In some weird way, this is part of the experience of going to a music festival in Ireland.
At Coachella however, you have to go to specially designated areas away from the festival grounds where you can only get one drink at a time. Sneaking in drink is not an option either as there is security everywhere and you are searched multiple times while entering the festival.
It seems the music is second priority for not all but many who attend Coachella and it is more about posting on social media platforms showing “look at how much fun we are having” than actually having any fun. Celebrities are there to be photographed by paparazzi and bloggers are there to be noticed or photographed by fashion magazines.
The hope to pop up in a magazine under “Coachella style” certainly comes at a price. Over $500 dollars to be exact and this is just for the ticket. Coachella isnt really a music festival in the real sense of the word, where care free people come together in the mud to celebrate music, but only acts like one.
Many bloggers make the money back on the ticket by wearing sponsored clothes and co-operations which may make some a profit. Festivals are usually a fun experience but Coachella seems to be more about endless hashtags and uploading pictures to Instagram.
If you are going to Coachella to catch a glimpse of some famous celebs, forget about it. Most of the time celebrities don’t even go to the actual festival but chill out at secret locations such as Lacoste and Mulberry pool parties.
While everyone is moaning about how jealous they are not getting to attend Coachella, it seems that it is a festival to show off and build a following as opposed to what a music festival should be, drunken fun while listening to your favourite music acts.
Colleen Brady