How Coachella Became America’s Biggest Music Festival w/ Katie Bain

0:00Katie Bain:This episode is brought to you by Tax Act. Don't do your taxes alone. Join Tax Act's National Admin Night. Admin nights are social gatherings for getting through your to-do list. So get ready for a night of fun, finding deductions, and filing taxes with Tax Act, where you can file your federal and state return for just$49 through April 8. Let's get together and get them over with. Visit taxact.com slash admin dash night for details.

0:31This episode is brought to you by Fandango. People say fans are too distracted these days, but the truth is, when a great movie hits the screen, you show up, you stay glued, invested, part of the story. And without fans like you, there'd be no cinema magic, no shared moments. So head to Fandango.com to get tickets, stream, or rent or buy top movies and series. Fandango loves fans. Coachella is back. The music festival returns to Indio, California this weekend with headline performances from Justin Bieber, Sabrina Carpenter, and Carol G. Coachella, however, is more than just a festival. It's a bucket list item for artists of all shapes and sizes, and performances are live-streamed to an audience of millions on YouTube around the world, making it one of the biggest and most impactful stages possible in music.

1:20Today, I'm joined by my colleague, Katie Bain. She's a senior correspondent, director of Billboard Dance, and the author of Desert Dreams, the music style and allure of Coachella, to talk through the history and business behind the big festival.

1:37Welcome back to On the Record, a music business podcast from Billboard and Sickbird Productions. As always, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and today we are talking about all things Coachella with my coworker, Katie Bain. Katie has been to Coachella more times than just about anyone else I know, so that alone made me want to invite her on. But also, Katie wears a lot of hats at Billboard, and that makes her the perfect fit for this conversation. She covers dance music, festivals, sustainability, and she recently released an entire book on Coachella called Desert Dreams. I learned a lot from reading this book.

2:09When Coachella kicked off in 1999, created by Golden Voice, the festival landscape was nothing like it is today. There were very few options out there, but there was stuff like Lollapalooza and Warped Tour. But this burgeoning festival scene really took a PR hit when Woodstock 99, which was a gigantic disaster leading to three deaths, stages set on fire, you name it, it happened there. This all occurred just the weekend before Coachella tickets went on sale for the first time. But still, by all accounts, Coachella was a hit from the start, and the crowd was far more respectful than the one that ended up at Woodstock 99.

2:43The first lineup featured acts like Beck, Tool, and Rage Against the Machine. And since then, it's ballooned into becoming America's number one music festival, featuring acts from all genres. And also, it's a place where you'll spot just about every influencer and star you've ever seen online in person. There's been a ton of iconic Coachella performances over the years, which have undoubtedly gone down in live music history. This includes Daft Punk's 2005 set, Beyonce's Homecoming, and many more. We'll dive into all of that in this special episode of the podcast dedicated to all things Coachella.

3:16Let's get started. Katie Bain, welcome to On The Record. Thank you so much. Long time fan, first time caller. I'm so happy to have you here. I love it when I can have my co-workers on and talk about different topics that really pertain to their area of expertise. And so when I knew Coachella was coming up, I was like, I have to have Katie. because I mean, you have a book. It's literally right there. Can you see it in the shot? Yeah. Okay. So Desert Dreams came out, what, a few months ago? It came out in October. October. Yes. Okay. Time flies. It does. Okay. So how did you end up getting involved with this book?

3:49Yeah. So it kind of fell in my lap. The publisher got in touch with me through another podcast I was on actually about Coachella a few years ago, and they were looking for someone to write a book about Coachella and I became the guy. Oh my gosh, I love that. I love that. So you're going to go back to the desert. You're covering Coachella for us again. You've done this many times already, which is a very tough gig, by the way. People don't know this, but it's not an easy gig. It actually, thank you for saying that because I don't think people do know because I'm like, oh, it's so hard covering Coachella and people are like, you know, like it's easy to dismiss.

4:25but you're writing until three or four in the morning for three nights in a row after being at Coachella all day. It's pretty grueling physically. Yeah, and I mean, also, you're not just sitting there enjoying the performances and letting it all pass you by. You're scrambling to write down the words or the song titles for everything, what's happening on stage. Exactly. I mean, as time has gone by, I just now take videos because I feel like they're the most effective notes, but it's also just getting from this stage to that stage to that stage to that stage to make sure that we have coverage on everything that we want to cover.

4:58And then going back to the house and then trying to pull eloquent sentences from your brain after a day of the sun. Yeah. Well, okay, so what are your must-sees for 2026 Coachella? Yeah, there are a few. I'm really excited about Nine Inch Noise, which is Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noise, who is one of my favorite producers, and he's been opening for them on their Peel It Back tour. So this is their first show. I mean, they've been collaborating a bit on the tour, but this is their first proper show is nine inch noise so it's gonna be really cool okay um i'm excited to see geese because oh yeah he loves geese um i am excited for sorry i'm gonna have to look in my notes yeah there's a lot going on well what headline are you covering i am going to cover i think sabrina carpenter okay yeah which is like a good full circle circle for me because i I was there in 2024 when she had her Coachella debut on the same stage, but obviously at a much earlier time of day.

5:55It was still light out. I think Espresso had come out the day before. Oh, yeah. And she said at some point during the set, like, I'm going to headline Coachella someday. And then two years later, here she is. It's incredible. It's incredible how much fortunes can change in just a couple short years because she's been grinding for so long. And then it was like Espresso was just the meteoric moment. 100%. Yeah. But that's also so interesting about booking festivals as you book them. like about like a year out right it must be I was trying to do the math on that because the lineup came out I think September 15th so that's October November December January February March April so we're already you know seven months ahead of the festival so yeah a year feels reasonable but I don't know the exact math there yeah but I mean so much can change for an artist's career in the span of a year well totally and like that's why the lineups I think are really interesting like I think Paul Tillett, one of the co-founders of Golden Voice, said in an article, doing a lineup is kind of like gambling.

6:51Because artists could be really hot today, but their fortunes could go down in the seven months between when the lineup comes out and when the festival happens. So you kind of roll the dice with every booking. That's so interesting. Okay, well, let's take it back. You mentioned Paul Tillett. He founded Golden Voice, co-founded Golden Voice, and also founded Coachella. So let's start with some little Coachella history. Can you tell me about how Coachella got started? This was late 90s, right? Yeah. Set the scene for us. So, I mean, Golden Voice is really a product of the Southern California punk rock scene because that's where Paul Tillet was coming from.

7:26He was a punk promoter in Pomona, which is in the Inland Empire, east of LA. And then Gary Tovar, the co-founder, was also a punk promoter in Orange County, you know, all over the place, like the Southern California region. And so they were like ostensibly competitors, but they met one day and they found that they liked each other. They started promoting each other's shows and they created Golden Voice. Simultaneously, not simultaneously, but in that same period, let's say, everyone remembers when Pearl Jam had their famous like showdown with Ticketmaster. And so they were touring for their album Versus.

8:04And this was like 93. three and they were not going to play Southern California because there was not a non-ticket mess ticketmaster affiliated venue and so they said if you know someone can find us a spot to play that you know we don't have to sell tickets through ticketmaster we will come to SoCal. Paul Tillet was the one that was like well the Empire Polo Club is about 125 miles east of LA especially in those days it was they really considered the boondocks it was far away it was a desert town Pearl Jam agreed. Wow. And so they had kind of what they didn't know at the time, but it was like a prototype event when Pearl Jam played out there in 93.

8:42And it went really well. A lot of people came up from LA, of course, and it really demonstrated that you could throw shows on that field. Interesting. And also, I think we take for granted that like the festival scene at that time was just starting, but it wasn't really much of a thing around the time that Coachella was started. Right, which is so fascinating because obviously the festival market in the States now is massive. But yeah, at the time, you're absolutely right. There were touring festivals. There was, of course, Lollapalooza. There was Horde Festival. There was the Warped Tour. There was Lilith Fair, 97, 98, 99.

9:19But there wasn't really that iconic. Like a Glastonbury type thing for the U.S. Exactly. There was no Glastonbury. There was no Redding. I mean, obviously we had Woodstock in 69, but that was already, you know, 25, 30 years. Yeah. Yeah. And then, okay, so I was reading your book and the thing that really stood out to me, something I didn't know before is that Woodstock 99, which was a huge, huge disaster. Can't explain to you guys enough, like how big of a disaster this was. If you don't know, watch the documentary immediately because it's like, it's an unmitigated disaster. The people that got trench mouth because of the bad water, like it just went wrong in every single way.

10:01Yeah. Yeah. No. So it was a total disaster. Woodstock 99. It was the revamp of Woodstock 69 trying to bring it back. Did not go well. And then in your book, you were talking about how Coachella's tickets went live for the first ever Coachella the next day. Isn't that fascinating? That's crazy. Yeah. And it was obviously like other side of the country, very different setting because Woodstock 99 happened in an Air Force base. There was no shade. There was no water. It was very poorly planned. And then Coachella kind of comes along and it's this Eden ostensibly of palm trees and grass and Bougainvillea in the desert.

10:38And, you know, ultimately then offered a very alternative vibe from Woodstock 99. I did talk to people that were there for the first year, and they said that having seen what happened at Woodstock 99, there was a little bit of maybe a little anxiety in the air of just like, is that going to happen here as well? But of course, it did not. Yeah. Yeah. So how did the first Coachella happen? Like, was it was it good? Did it? By all accounts, it was great. Yeah. The L.A. Times gave it a rave review. So did Rolling Stone. They noted that the attendees were very nice. It was hot. It was really hot that day, as it tends to be out there.

11:15But talking to some friends, yeah, again, who were there, they said that from that first year, it felt as special as it still feels now. Like they knew that it was special and different from the very beginning. Yeah. I mean, Coachella now is absolutely gigantic. Would you say it's like the biggest U.S. festival? I feel like it is, right? It must be. Or culturally the biggest. I think that's fair to say. Certainly. And culturally one of the world's biggest. Absolutely. Yeah. What was the turning point where it went from like, this is a fun SoCal festival. People enjoy it. Locals love it. To this huge behemoth that it is today.

11:49I think there are a few benchmarks along the way. I think that when they booked Radiohead in 2006, they were the biggest band in the world. Of course, they had had big bands before, but Radiohead was really kind of like it. And so to get an artist of that caliber at the festival, I think, really, you know, increased Coachella's stature. Yeah. Let's say. And then, of course, the other big moment that I talk about a lot is when the festival went from one to two weekends. And when was that? It was 2012. 2012. Yeah. And it was really like it emphasized just like the insane demand for this event. Either that year or the year after is when they also launched the live stream, which was a huge deal because it opened Coachella up, not just to the people that were there on the grounds, like the people that knew about it, but the whole world could then watch Coachella on YouTube.

12:40And that, I think, is when it became this worldwide phenomenon. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to be hyperbolic in saying this, but I feel like because of the live stream, because of the two weekends, being a headliner at Coachella is probably the biggest stage behind Super Bowl for an artist. Yeah. To be a headliner at Coachella, that is probably the second biggest. I think you're right. Opportunity. Yeah. It just it feels like it has such a huge cultural impact. I mean, we could also get into like all of the iconic headlining sets over the years, but Beyonce's homecoming always stands out to me as one of those moments where it just like really defines a person's legacy.

13:16Absolutely. I mean, I was there. I was very, very lucky to be there. Do you want to talk about that show? Yeah, let's do it. How much time do you have? I can be here all day. So I remember a friend of mine's boyfriend at the time worked in production. So we were kind of getting these reports of like what was happening backstage. and the rumor was like Beyonce just showed up with like 60 trucks maybe that number is overblown or like has grown in my head over the years but like the rumor was like she's here and she has a lot of stuff there's a lot of like people in tow there's a lot of like things you could just feel I'm a huge Beyonce fan yeah so I like as the set time got closer I could feel just the anticipation rising myself but I always say like it's it's hard it's a big field that main stage and there must be space for you know 70 80 90 thousand people obviously they try to do some counter programming so not every single person at the festival is standing there because that wouldn't necessarily be safe yeah but it's really hard and I've only felt it a few times where it felt like she had everybody from the first row all the way to the back.

14:27Everyone was really with her and everyone was in it together. And it was kind of just this closed container of energy and experience. Beyonce was the first black woman to headline Coachella. Also, I think it was a really interesting moment for pop music at Coachella because she was supposed to headline in 2017. She had to drop out because she was pregnant with her twins. Lady Gaga filled in. And of course she was touring at that time behind Lemonade, which is a really interesting album for her because I feel like it kind of made Beyonce a pop artist but also a conceptual artist. And it really leveled up just her artistry and her storytelling.

15:06It was a concept album. And so I think that is when Coachella took this really significant turn into the pop headliners that we see dominating the festival today. Like 20 years ago, you would have not had Carol G, Sabrina Carpenter, and Justin Bieber. Back in the day, you didn't have Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, and NSYNC. Like it just wouldn't have happened. So I think Beyonce was a real like tone shifter in how the headliners are booked. Yeah, and Coachella historically, like it started off more rock, right? 100%, it was alternative rock. I mean, the year, the first year was Rage Against the Machine, Tool, and Back.

15:41So it was alternative and indie rock. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Okay, so you also cover dance music at Billboard. that is actually probably your primary beat, but you do all sorts of things. So whenever I think of Coachella, another iconic performance I think of in the dance realm would be Daft Punk. Yeah. I mean, can you talk to me about that? I imagine you weren't there for that one. I can talk to you about my sadness for not being there, but just feeling like I narrowly missed something that's extremely important. So important. And every person, I feel like so many people that work in dance music, especially in Southern California, were there and got kind of like baptized into the genre in that moment.

16:21I was not there, but it happened in the Sahara tent, which was, of course, at the time, much smaller. Like now it's this kind of like gargantuan transformer machine. Back in the day, it was just a regular, it was a tent. But they had their pyramid set up. It was a big deal for Coachella to book Daft Punk. and by all accounts it's like the greatest thing that's ever happened to anyone ever. The pyramid structure that they built is like such an iconic piece of like live music history. Yeah. Really pushed the boundaries on what you could do as a setup and I feel like you can very clearly see now all of the DJs, the dance artists moving forward, taking inspiration and paying homage to what Daft Punk did at that time.

17:05Yes. It really pushed the boundaries. It really set the precedent for production, for stage production in electronic music, which you just subsequently saw over the years get bigger and bigger. It's like I think by 2011 or 12, Skrillex had a spaceship. It was like it really all started with that pyramid. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's it's really crazy how far we've come. I actually did a story on the Daft Punk show when I first became a music journalist. And I was talking to all these people who worked in live music production, talked to some people who designed the pyramid at the time. talking to them about how like the bar just got raised and it's only raised higher and higher and that's also one reason why you could see ticket prices rising there's a billion reasons why ticket prices are really insane at this point but the production value that people are putting into shows now is way beyond yes what it used to be pre-daft punk pre some of these big iconic moments of the 2000s that's a really good point and and and we pay for that as fans yeah but we love to see it so but we love to see it and also you can't have a stadium show now where you just show up and you're like we got one truck we got a drummer and a guitarist so you know I interviewed um Arthur Fogel from the chairman of touring at Live Nation last year and he's like you know it can work you can put a guy on a stage with a guitar and some lights and that can work but I like the spectacle you know and like I think people really gravitate to the Beyonce's of the world and the Oasis's and just the fireworks and the Lady Gaga's and the stuff and the thing and costumes and that's what we've come to expect.

18:33Yeah. And so when did you start going to Coachella? Because I feel like you've been every year. I don't know if you've always been covering it, but you've you're a loyal. I am. I am a loyal attendee. I've missed a few years in my tenure, but I first went in 2008 because Prince was headlining. I just moved to L.A. I had no idea what Coachella was. Like I wasn't going for Coachella. I was going to see Prince. Yes. And then I got out there and I I was like, this is the whole world. I had been to Bonnaroo and I had grown up going to Summerfest in Milwaukee. And just like I had, of course, a sense of music festivals, but I had never been in the desert.

19:09I had never experienced desert heat. And so that was just a whole different experience. And so that was year one. Prince, I mean, that's one of the all time performances at Coachella. He did it in such a Prince way, too, where they had asked him. He said no. And then I think, yeah, like two weeks before the festival, Paul Tillet did an interview somewhere where he said he got a call from Prince saying, can I split the merch profits with you? And Paul Tillet was like, are you playing Coachella? And he's like, oh, yeah, no, I'm going to be there. That's kind of how it came to be. Can you imagine getting that call and you're like, OK, let's rework the entire set times, everything.

19:54And that's what you do when Prince wants to come play your show. And it was such a party. It was such a party. He played a lot of covers. That's incredible. He did Little Red Corvette. And I was like, oh, I can die happy. And it's like, I'm good. And then he did Purple Rain. And it was just like it went to this place of like pure. I mean, really like as blissful as you can feel at a show where, you know, we have all had that experience. That's what it was. That's incredible. So I feel like Coachella is not just known for being a music festival at this point. It's also so much more than that. Like if you go outside of the festival grounds, Revolve Fest is something that's been growing year over year.

20:31There's so many different like kind of satellite events that people can go to after parties, all that stuff. I mean, it feels like brands and sponsorships and these outside events are such a core part of the Coachella experience at this point. Do you ever feel like this kind of just overshadows the point, like the music itself? I think it can overshadow it if you don't go to Coachella. like I think that it has become this kind of cliche about the festival of like oh it's all parties and influencers and this that the other thing it is that is a huge part of the festival during weekend one because every brand wants to kind of draft on the cultural power and cachet of that festival it's a great thing to be affiliated with people want to come cool stylish people come they look great people put a lot of effort into their outfits and their looks but if you are not going and some people don't go to the festival and they're just there for the fashion and the party scene that's fine but like it's really to me ultimately about the music or it is what you make it yeah did that answer your question yeah I think so I think so I think that like it's funny I've actually been to Coachella before without going to Coachella like I went to just parties I tried doing that once yeah it was very strange what was strange about it?

21:50I mean, it was just strange to like, I would do these day parties and then everyone else would go to the festival. And then I just like went back to the place where I was staying. I was like staying on the floor somewhere. And I was like, you know what? I mean, I love music. So for me, I was like, I, this is silly that I'm not going into Coachella, but the ticket prices are really high. Um, I mean, it was funny reading in your book, you were talking about how ticket prices first year were$50 or it was like 50 per day. And then, and they, they lost a lot of money and they said, oh, we should have charged 55.

22:22Well, now it's a little bit more than that. It's a little bit more. One of the biggest stories that one of our coworkers at Billboard did last year was revealing that 60 % of GA Coachella goers actually use a payment plan to pay for their ticket. Yes. And I think that's so interesting. Like, I think it could say something about the economy. It could say something about the clientele of a music festival. I'm curious what your take is on it, being closer to live music than I am. Yeah. The great Dave Brooks reported that story and it really got a lot of pickup. Like I remember seeing a story in the cut after that being like, no one can afford a Coachella anymore.

22:56And it was really like turned into this, this thing of like, you know, what does it mean about the youth and the economy? And people were really like hand wringing about it. I think that it's a really smart way for people that don't necessarily have$600 to spend in a given moment to make payments for six months and make that financial blow less impactful. It costs$41 to do the payment plan. And so it's not like they're charging crazy interest on it. And it's not like Klarna or something where you can pay over time, but then the interest is what gets you. yeah it's actually a pretty good deal and I think especially if you're a young person you don't like make a lot of money like I don't know why you wouldn't do the payment plan like it's just it's a it's a nice option to get people in the door that don't have six ten six hundred dollars to spend up front yeah and I do feel like in general to me music festivals are such a good bang for your buck like I know I was just talking about high ticket prices but like yes Coachella is expensive but you're also seeing just about like every star you might have on your list that you want to see in the next couple years which is why they're expensive to put together yeah like it's like there's a reason that ticket cost 600 for ga but i think you're absolutely right it's like going to a great buffet yeah it's like i could eat this and that and that and that and that and the other thing and like i will leave full and i will have had some new foods that i didn't know before to extend that analogy too far but yeah no i i do think that it's a really good option but it It does feel to me, I don't know if this is actually accurate.

24:30So stop me if I'm wrong. But I kind of feel like post-pandemic music festivals aren't quite as hot as they used to be in general. I'm not talking about Coachella specifically. I don't know. Maybe I'm just old and I've aged out of wanting to go to all of them. But in the 2010s, I feel like there was a festival for every niche in every area of the country. And then post-pandemic, I think we saw fewer smaller festivals come back. in more renewed interest in going to stadium tours, like Taylor Swift's Ares tour is kind of a perfect example. Tell me, do you think that festivals have become less popular?

25:04I think that it has become a lot harder for independent festivals to exist. Okay, why? Because there's a lot of competition for talent. It's a lot of money to book artists. Radius clauses are a thing. Festivals are difficult because the margins are really thin. It's very hard to make a profit with the festival. And so with Live Nation and AEG putting on these big events, a lot of independent promoters have been kind of, and I'm not blaming just them, but, you know, it's obviously a lot of things post-pandemic especially. But it's really hard to throw an independent festival. A lot of the small ones have gone away.

25:40Some still exist. But in terms of festivals being less popular or less cool, I mean, Taylor Swift is a great example because she doesn't play festivals. Yeah. You can only see Taylor Swift at one of her headlining shows. Same with Oasis. Any number of festivals. I'm sure Coachella, Glastonbury, whomever, Primavera, would have loved to have Oasis on the bill. They didn't do it. They didn't want to, clearly. They could have had the pick. And so an artist like that, you have to go see them as a standalone show. So it's going to automatically create a taste for that and a phenomenon around it because these are huge bands.

26:16Do a lot of artists turn down Coachella? Because, I mean, I remember we've had some conversations in our newsroom over the past few years about how an artist can really make a lot more money if they're doing a stadium tour themselves. They're the main event. We were just talking about Taylor Swift and Oasis being two examples of folks that really prefer the stadium tour format. Do a lot of artists end up turning down Coachella in favor of doing their own tours instead? That's a really good question that I have no idea the answer to. You know, I can think of like, I think famously the talking heads have turned down Coachella because they don't want to do a reunion.

26:53But David Byrne plays Coachella as a solo act. He's playing this year. In terms of like these super modern or like band like Oasis, really relevant artists turning it down. I don't know. I really don't know. I guess we have so little insight into how many people they've reached out to. I'm sure they've reached out to Taylor Swift at some point. You know, it's like you'd have to think. Of course they'll try. But the invite has been extended, yes. The invite has been extended. It's just whether or not they want to pick up the phone and do it. Exactly. But I think one of the interesting parts of signing on to do a festival like Coachella is considering the radius clause.

27:32Yes. And this is a term that a lot of people who are listening might not know already. So can you explain what a radius clause is? Yeah. A radius clause is basically a clause in a contract that an artist signs when they, you know, play. They sign up to play any given festival or event. that they're not going to play in, let's say, a 200-mile radius around that event for three months before, three months after, or whatever the time span is. I think Coachella is three and three. They vary, and Coachella's is, I think, considered particularly strict. But they have to protect that event. It costs a lot of money to put that show on.