As of April 19th, Coachella 2026 ended with a bang. Featuring headliners and performers like Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, and Madonna, the two weeks wrapped up the way it has for the past decade: with thousands of influencers and celebrities making the long trek to whatever expensive slice of life they call home. And don’t get me wrong; while I would love to attend Coachella and see Justin Bieber “remember who he is,” live and in person, there are a few key underlying issues that make Coachella so inaccessible.
The first issue: it’s just so not a bang for your buck. Coachella began in 1999 in Indio, California, and was originally created to highlight alternative music and artistry. In 2001, we saw Weezer and Iggy Pop. In 2002, The Strokes and The Foo Fighters were highlighted. 2003 brought the Beastie Boys and Blur, and so it continued. In 1999, General Admissions tickets ran for about $50 per day, but the festival lost nearly $1 million in its first weekend, shutting Coachella down for a year before it came hurdling back in 2001 with soaring prices. 25 years later, the average price of a Coachella ticket is around $600 for three days, while single-day festival options are entirely resale-based, making resale tickets cost up to $4,000 each.
As festival prices skyrocketed, we began to see a shift in the festival’s culture. It’s important to remember that Coachella wasn’t exactly an underground event: Weezer, The Foo Fighters, and others were well-established bands in the 2000s, and the incorporation of famous musicians didn’t change in the years that followed. The difference was that these musicians were accessible: people could meet them and hear their thoughts and opinions, making the music seem to be right at their fingertips. In 2026, most current artists who headline or perform at Coachella are essentially unreachable. They’re either too famous, too wealthy, or any other subset of extreme affluence to have much involvement with their crowd. Part of the issue is outreach: social media and online streaming platforms amplify artists’ fan bases, increasing the turnout from influencers and causing musicians to retreat right back to their trailers after the show is over. Another explanation for the lack of interaction with fans could be the size of the crowd. Since 1999, the yearly crowd turnout has grown from 30,000 to 250,000 people, making it significantly harder for artists to maintain the connected vibe Coachella started out with. Whatever reasoning you decide to go with, there’s no denying that the accessibility of artists has changed dramatically since the foundation of the event.
In addition to the sheer number of people attending the festival, we’ve seen cultural changes in festival-goers as well. In 1999, most people with a job and a dream could attend Coachella, and the most famous people in the crowd were usually friends and family of the performers. In the past decade, the experience of music has faltered, with many people attending for the views and attention they’ll receive from it. And don’t even get me started on the Coachella stylists. The event has gone from fun to prestigious, and you’re much more likely to see an influencer there for likes on social media than just a normal fan of the artists.
I don’t mean to be salty; I want to go to Coachella as much as the next person. Seeing artists perform in a packed, sweaty crowd and 100-degree heat is my absolute dream. But even if I were more than happy to drop a couple thousand on a weekend-long day festival, the culture, dynamic, and focus of the festival have changed almost unrecognizably, making the entire event not worth it. So, if Coachella plans to bring in any average person with a paycheck below six figures, they’ll have to do a little bit more than bring Justin Bieber back onstage to play his old hits off YouTube. •
