How Fashion Co-Opted Coachella

[JI7]

For the past five years, fashion houses, lifestyle brands, and beauty companies including H&M, PopSugar, Lacoste, and Kiehl's have been flocking to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. There, in the midst of the California desert, they’ve hosted pool parties alongside inflatable white swans, and resplendent brunches on tables decorated with tulle and succulent bouquets of flowers. They’ve created in-hotel lounges with brightly colored, branded throw pillows strewn atop couches, and escape-from-Coachella portrait studios, complete with braid bars and detoxifying misters.

But this year, a new trend has been unmistakeable. Attendees, clad in the eponymous Coachella uniform of floppy hats, cutoffs and something fringed, are opting out of the event that brought them to the desert in the first place, choosing instead to bounce from invite-only pool party to tented fashion show to free concert. “No-Chella,” as it’s become known, has overtaken Coachella.

Inevitably, as festivals grow they have to evolve, but such expansion isn't always popular. In January, the Washington Post proclaimed that “Coachella is dead,” implying that complimentary spa services, DIY flower crowns and celebrity-studded carnivals have usurped it. Although the festival’s always featured a mélange of up-and-comers alongside more established acts, there was a time (in 2006) when the alt-metal band Tool took the top spot on the main stage, leaving Madonna to perform in the dance tent.

But in recent years, the music has seemed less important to some than the outfits on display. “Coachella is a 'see and be seen' fashion moment—what fashion darlings are wearing is just as important as the headliners performing,” said Caitlin Weiskopf, the executive director of ShopBazaar, an e-commerce site owned by the magazine Harpers Bazaar.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/04/how-the-fashion-industry-co-opted-coachella/390843/#disqus_thread

[hobbit709]

1. SXSW has gotten the same way.

It's more important who to be seen with. It started out as a way for unknown bands to get recognition.
Now for a band to get on the official players list takes several thousand dollars to the organizers to even be considered.
One year the SXSW clowns gave the fire marshal a list of all the clubs that didn't give the organizers a cut of the action and had them checked for occupancy violations. They made the mistake of printing out the list on official SXSW letterhead and someone noticed it on the fire marshal's clipboard.
They then tried to ban the person that blew the whistle on them. Funny thing was that all the official venues were jam packed but not a single occupancy inspection happened.
One of the reasons I quit going about ten years ago-they took the fun out of it.

[JI7]

2. i noticed this starting a few years ago when i would meet people

who were going to the area but not to the actual concerts itself. they just wanted to be in the area and part of the crowd.

at least sxsw still has main focus on the music . coachella is more about what kardashians are wearing.

but the music industry really does suck. i'm not sure what should be done but the good musicians who really do care about music just accept they will not be able to make it really big and play small events and at least they are doing what they love.