If you’re bummed because you couldn’t see the art installation “Spectra” at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2018, here’s some good news: it’s back for this year’s iteration of the festival.

The seven-story structure, with windows in all colors of the rainbow, has become the festival’s first resident art exhibit. Its creator, British firm NEWSUBSTANCE, has an agreement in place with the festival where they plan to keep the structure up over three years.

“Overview Effect,” the roaming astronaut moves near rainbow tower “Spectra” at the opening day of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Friday, April 12, 2019. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Festival-goers walk inside the Spectra art installation during the 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Friday, April 12, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Sound The gallery will resume in seconds

The sun sets through the Spectra art installation during the first day of the 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Friday, April 12, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Festival goers walk through the Spectra art installation, by NEWSUBSTANCE, during the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Friday, April 12, 2019. (Photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Festival-goers stand in the shade of the Spectra art installation during the 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Friday, April 12, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)



Joe Simek, 25, and Abby Sisk, 24, both of Los Angeles, relax inside the air-conditioned Spectra art installation with the Ferris Wheel in the background during the 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Friday, April 12, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Festival-goers walk inside the Spectra art installation, left, in front of the Ferris Wheel during the 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Friday, April 12, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Ferris Wheel is seen from inside the Spectra art installation during the 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Friday, April 12, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Fans walk inside the Spectra art installation after the sun set during the first day of the 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Friday, April 12, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

This year it will pretty much be the same as it was last year. Patrick O’Mahony, creative director for NEWSUBSTANCE, said his team will be getting the structure show-ready since it’s been sitting relatively untouched on the festival grounds since last year, but they’re not going to be making any major aesthetic or design changes.

He said that’s because only a small fraction of Coachella’s audience got to get inside the structure or appreciate it from the outside so he wanted people who never got that opportunity to have it this year.

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“We wanted to let people see it in its original form again this year before we then start to look at the new kind of directions we’re talking to with the festival for it in the future,” he said.

O’Mahony said the multi-year agreement, which currently runs through Coachella 2020, “opens up a whole language” of how the structure could evolve. It could end up looking much different for that year of the festival.

O’Mahony said the original rainbow color scheme chosen for the structure was picked because it played well with the sunrise and sunset over the Coachella Valley.

“That was kind of what captivated us first when we first came to the Coachella site was the amazing landscape that was around it so we wanted to propel people into that sunrise and sunset with that walk of color as you go up the structure,” he said. “That’s an obvious place that we’re already considering is if we shift that color and we change that visual appearance of it, where could we go next in terms of that color language?”

Another element that O’Mahony said he’s keen to explore is the addition of sound to “Spectra.” He said he would like to turn it into a 3D sound piece in the future.

“So how can we change that journey as you go up through the structure with a soundscape as well as a visual scape that you see and how will that change people’s experience and journey as you go through the structure?” he said.

One of the things O’Mahony said he likes about the installation is how it can transform a landscape that for some festival goers is something they’ve seen year after year and turn it into a whole new world through the use of color.

People don’t just get to enjoy a different perspective by traveling through the installation, they become a part of it, particularly when the lights turn on at dark, O’Mahony said.

“We always wanted a big transition between how it looks during the day and how it looks at night, but what we hadn’t anticipated was at nighttime the people within the structure become part of the art itself,” he said. “It was kind of like ants in a little house, like insects moving around it, but their shadows were so strong against the lighting we had in there — people moving through the structure through the nighttime became an actual part of the installation.”

O’Mahony said being at the festival over multiple years in a way realizes a goal NEWSUBSTANCE had when they created “Spectra.”

“What we were really keen to do with ‘Spectra’ was become part of that iconic Coachella landscape from the Ferris wheel and everything else,” he said. “We wanted to it to feel like it’s always been there in a sense and I think that’s the transition we hopefully make this year to be part of the fabric and furniture of the festival site.”

Check out more of the Coachella art below:

Correction: A previous version of this story had mistated what year the installation’s residency would run through.