How to Become Familiar With the Different Stages/Venues at Coachella

For the past several years, the Coachella Festival has had essentially the same layout / setup. I think they try to keep it consistent from year to year to make it easier for themselves and to maintain continuity, because, a lot of people seem to have problems coping with change. The setup seems to work, so why change it.

There are 5 main music venues at every Coachella. Two outdoor stages, and three stages inside tents. Read the following steps to become familiar with each of them. I'll list them in order from biggest to smallest...

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A map of the festival Grounds (available online shortly before the festival and handed out at the entrance as well)

1. 

   COACHELLA STAGE. Commonly referred to as the "main stage" this is the biggest venue at the festival, and where all the headliners and more popular acts typically perform. Obviously, this stage draws more fans than the others, and towards the end of the night, it's safe to say that more than half of all the fans at Coachella are parked in front of the main stage. Located in the northwest corner of the festival grounds, it's the closest stage to the entrance/exit.

2. 

   OUTDOOR THEATER. The second outdoor stage, it's not nearly as big as the main stage, but still pretty big, and can accommodate a pretty big crowd since it's outdoors. Some legendary performances have gone down on this stage, such as Mogwai last year and the Arcade Fire the year before. The Outdoor Theater is located in the northeast corner of the festival grounds.

3. 

   SAHARA TENT. This is a huge tent located in the southeast corner of the festival, and is often referred to as the "dance tent" or the "electronica tent" because almost all the acts that perform at Sahara are electronica/dance acts. The tent is really big, and was slightly changed for 2006 when it was made even bigger and slightly angled in towards the center of the festival (perhaps to accomodate the huge Madonna crowd last year). The Sahara tent has also seen many legendary performances throughout the years by electronica legends such as Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, and Kraftwerk.

4. 

   MOJAVE TENT. This tent is located along the east edge of the festival grounds, fairly close to the Sahara tent. The type of acts typically scheduled in the Mojave tent are more along the lines of indie rock and art rock, or singer/songwriter types. Last year, the Mojave tent hosted acts such as James Blunt, Cat Power, Wolfmother, and TV on the Radio.

5. 

   GOBI TENT. The smallest of the venues at Coachella, but still can accommodate a nice size crowd. Sometimes referred to as the "hip-hop tent" since most of the underground hip-hop acts that perform at Coachella are scheduled in Gobi. But other types of music can be found there too, including many solo acts such as Jamie Liddell and Imogen Heap.

Tips & Warnings

• Technically, you could say there are 6 music venues at Coachella now, because in the past couple years they've had Performance artists and DJ's spinning in the Oasis Dome, which is meant to be a place to cool off and chill out.
• The map in the above photo is from 2006.