Coachella 2018: Sahara tent is expanding and moving in a big and shady way

Coachella founder Paul Tollett was in an Indio movie theater when he discovered his nonpareil music festival had transcended the boundaries of live art and become part of a cinematic phenomenon.

“I was here in bed at 9:45 at night,” the Goldenvoice president and CEO said from a house at the Eldorado Polo Club in Indio. “I got a text from a friend who said, ‘You’ve got to go see ‘Black Panther.’ I said, ‘OK.’ He said, ‘No, tonight. Right now.’ I got out of bed and went down to Indio Regal at 10:15 – alone -– and I watched it. It was a great movie. But I was thinking the whole time, ‘Why did my friend say it was such an emergency?’ Then, at the end, it was super cool.”

That’s when T’Challa, aka the Black Panther, goes to Oakland with his teenage sister Shuri, who quips:

“When you said you would take me to California for the first time, I thought you meant Coachella, or Disneyland.”

Tollett suddenly realized how far his 19-year-old creation had seeped into pop culture mythology. His cool, record-grossing music festival had just become a reference point in a cool, record-grossing movie.

“Oh, wow,” Tollett said to himself. “That’s kind of heavy.”

Movie-goers cheered at the mention of Coachella, which resembles an affluent city within the city of Indio just as T’Challa’s Wakanda appears as a technologically rich nation within a nation in "Black Panther."

But Tollett wondered, did they cheer just because they were watching the movie in Indio?

He went to Brazil on business and saw a poster for “Pantero Negro.” He watched “Black Panther” again just to hear the reaction to the line about Coachella.

“This was the coolest thing,” he said. “It was in English with Portuguese subtitles, and people cheered in the theater. I was so excited. Down there, people picked up the reference.”

Coachella emerged from a 1990s culture where major music festivals didn’t last. A 1999 reboot of Woodstock failed just before Coachella’s launch. There were 40 years between Cal Jam 2 and Cal Jam 17 last fall at Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernardino. There were 50 years between the Monterey pop festivals.

Coachella has succeeded by constantly changing and trying new things.

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For the April 13-15 and 20-22 festivals headlined by Beyoncé, Eminem and The Weeknd, Tollett’s Goldenvoice company will make a huge change. The Sahara tent, where an electronic dance scene has evolved from the rave culture into the pop mainstream, will move from its long-time space near the rose garden at Empire Polo Club to a larger space next door at Eldorado Polo Club, which Tollett bought in 2012 to expand Coachella and its sister Stagecoach country music festival.

The parabola-shaped structure, with a dome making it resemble what Tollett calls “a giant Quonset hut,” will be 25 percent larger than the old Sahara, which reached a height of about 80 feet when it expanded in 2013. Tollett said its capacity can’t be measured because people flow through three of its four sides. But the crowd for last year's first weekend set by the popular Chainsmokers extended 200 feet beyond the tent, probably drawing more than 10,000 people.

Fans have complained about overcrowding in the Sahara tent for years. People commenting on Reddit last year declared that “EDM has outgrown the Sahara."

“RL Grime was straight up unsafe and dangerous,” said a contributor with the colorful nickname, MyButtStinksBad. “If there were an emergency or someone was stuck they would die. It's so packed I couldn't even leave to go to the bathroom. People pressing up against each other, yelling and screaming, pushing and hitting. Absolute joke Coachella. Fix this before it becomes a major disaster. Widen it, move it do something.”

“Not sure how much more they can do,” added a Reddit commenter called Trickrubin. “It’s so huge already. but the packed crowds are definitely a problem.”

Electronic artist Calvin Harris set an unofficial record when he attracted more than 50,000 people to the main Coachella Stage area in 2016. Headliners for the Sahara tent probably won’t be announced until the week of the festival, but the expanded Sahara makes it possible for high-profile DJs such as Kygo and Illenium, and electronic duos such as ODESZA, Chromeo and Louis the Child to play the Sahara.

But the venue isn’t just increasing in size. It’s new position, just a short walk from the Do LaB stage, the Beer Barn and the new signature art piece, Spectrum (a 70-foot tower of what appears to be Life Savers that has a walkway to the top) will be better protected from the sun. It will be shaded all afternoon, Tollett said, which will keep it cooler.

“It’s going to revolutionize the show,” the promoter said.

Moving into the Sahara’s old space will be the mid-size Mojave Tent, which last year was pushed back behind an access road with the smaller Gobi Tent. It is also being enlarged.

The Do LaB, which is a combination art installation and live music space, is this year featuring more than 40 acts, including Mansion, Chris Lake and Father Bear, and it’s promoting “two surprise guests” every day each weekend.

The Obscura Digital-designed Antarctic Dome, last year’s next big thing that won an award at the Las Vegas XLIVE Conference for Best Use of Technology at a Festival, is getting an all-new show for people who want to sit in a dark, air-conditioned environment and watch innovative digital images unfold in 360 degrees all around them.

Coachella introduced virtual reality in the H&M clothing line tent in 2015 and VRscout.com said it generated “nothing but crickets on social media.” But VR’s popularity has grown as it’s been included as part of a smorgasbord of technological experiences, including stereoscopic 3D LED technology in the Sahara tent.

“There’s been an explosion of virtual reality,” Tollett said. “Right now, we’re kind of excited about augmented reality. We’re going to have a big program with that this year. Augmented reality is something people are going to be using a lot in years to come and we want to dip our toe in.”

Goldenvoice has been purchasing and leasing more property around the Eldorado and the Empire Polo Club, owned by Alex Haagen III, to create more parking and more space for people to spread out in the camp grounds and on the signature green grass among the music and arts attractions.

Tollett says his festival philosophy is “always keep it moving.” But he’s just as concerned with sedentary comforts. A recent visit to the polo fields revealed crews laying sewer pipes that will connect to more flush toilets for the 2019 festival.

Tollett hasn’t figured out why Coachella sells out of advance tickets before the lineups are announced, or why 250,000 people now come from all over the world to the two-weekend event wearing designer clothes and flower crowns. He can’t pinpoint one thing that distinguishes Coachella from all of the festivals that have not warranted a mention in “Black Panther.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think about it all the time so we don’t lose it. What is it we’re doing that’s going right? Just a fun feeling. It is magical out here.

“You’ve got to give credit to Mr. Haagen and his polo operation – how he puts so much effort into that site to make it look so beautiful. I was telling someone recently, when we did Pearl Jam out here in 1993, I didn’t realize the mountains (were all around). We were just so focused on keeping that a $25 ticket. We weren’t thinking, ‘Wow, look how beautiful it is out here.’ When we came back out, we thought, ‘Wow, these mountains are sweet. This is the whole thing. The palm trees and the grass’ – just everything else he had done. The venue has a lot to do with it, for sure.”