Coachella opens today

The desert festival that helped turn Indio into a global April pilgrimage is back on Friday, April 10, with the first Coachella weekend running through April 12 and the second returning April 17 through April 19 at the Empire Polo Club. (coachella.com) (coachellavalley.com) This year’s three top-billed names are Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, and Karol G, and Coachella is using the same lineup across both weekends so fans get two shots at the same headliners. (coachellavalley.com) (aol.com) The undercard shows how far the festival has moved from its rock-band roots: Anyma brings arena-scale electronic visuals, The xx return as an indie draw, The Strokes bring the old Coachella guitar lineage, and Big Bang adds a rare Korean pop reunion pull. (coachellavalley.com) Coachella now works like a copy-and-paste city that appears in the desert for six days, with camping, shuttles, food courts, art installations, merch tents, and accessibility hubs all operating around the music schedule. (coachella.com 1) (coachella.com 2) (coachella.com 3) (coachella.com 4) The gates and security setup show the scale of that temporary city: the festival tells attendees to expect dog sweeps, bag checks, and walk-through metal detectors before entry, the same kind of screening you see at a stadium game. (coachella.com) A lot of the weekend starts before the first big set does, because campers can check vehicles in on Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m., and the camping side has its own stores, activities, and morning merchandise hours before the main venue fills up. (coachella.com 1) (coachella.com 2) (coachella.com 3) If you are not in Indio, Coachella is still built to be watched from home: the official 2026 livestream runs on YouTube across seven stages on both weekends, and the festival is again offering “Watch With” streams where creators react live alongside the performances. (coachella.com) (aol.com) That split screen between the polo fields and YouTube is now part of the event’s design, not an add-on, because Coachella is selling a live experience in Indio and a remote experience for millions who will never touch the grass at Empire Polo Club. (coachella.com 1) (coachella.com 2) By the time the first headliner walks onstage tonight, Coachella 2026 will already be doing three jobs at once: a concert for pass holders, a campground for thousands of overnight fans, and a global broadcast built to turn one California weekend into a worldwide pop-culture event. (coachella.com) (coachella.com) (coachella.com)