Coachella is more than just a music festival—it’s a cultural phenomenon that sets the stage for fashion, beauty, and lifestyle trends. Each year, during the middle two weekends in April, top performers, artists, influencers, and thousands of music (and fashion!) lovers converge in Indio, California, in the Inland Empire region's Coachella Valley within the Colorado Desert. Brands across industries can use this event to engage audiences, drive sales, and enhance visibility in several impactful ways, which we’ll detail below!
There are actionable insights for brands prepared to participate in or piggyback on Coachella's vast influence on fashion, lifestyle, music, and culture. The event’s reach is vast, and generating sales from this year’s event doesn’t have to be a heavy lift for data-informed companies. The time to start paying attention, though, is now, as the conversation is rapidly picking up, with some passes and glamping accommodations already sold out for both weekends:
Audience mentions of Coachella Feb-March 2025
Understanding attendees interest, in both the event their day-to-day lives, is the best “in” for any brand. Although a passion for music obviously tops the list, other interests span the ‘who’s who’ of a creative’s wishlist. During our analysis, we uncovered attendees additional interests, including what may be unexpected outliers for people attending an event billed as bohemian and free love—surprisingly, “family” and “religion” also intersect with music as this audience’s top interests. Coachella is actually for all ages, and there are increasing numbers of young children in attendance, so taking a family-oriented angle could be a valuable niche to keep in mind, if relevant to your brand:
Fashion and art are always top topics surrounding Coachella, with bohemian, retro, fringe, crochet, and sheer fabric aesthetics adorning attendees and statement accessories dominating the scene. Brands can generate buzz by launching exclusive limited-edition festival collections with time-sensitive promotions, encouraging shoppers to curate their perfect Coachella outfits. This encourages urgency and enhances the sense of exclusivity tied to festival fashion and events.
Regardless of the product or experience you’re creating, although festival-ready pieces can be either throwaway/fast-fashion or sustainable options, honoring the sustainability focus at this venue is advised.
Diving deeper into the audience analysis, we see that attendees actually love eco-friendly outfits and reusable festival gear—though at first glance, it may appear there’s little love for all things “sustainable:”
Consumer sentiment about Coachella, by interest (2023-2025)
This is why it’s important to not only look at overarching sentiment (-100 to 100), but also how passionate people are about what they’re saying and the opinions expressed, and more specifically, the conversations themselves:
Consumer passion about Coachella, by interest (2023-2025)
We can see that, although the conversation around sustainability takes up a less significant share than fashion in general, the negative emotions around fast-fashion are expressed very passionately and shouldn’t be ignored. Uncovering these distinctions and focusing not only on what consumers are saying, but how passionately they are saying it, separates the brands pushing fast fashion and losing market share from those understanding audience desires and capturing new markets with curated, sustainable, “closet staple” pieces. We also see an overall shift towards a desire for sustainability in other areas, like the event itself and the surrounding area, that the Coachella staff has already made steps towards prioritizing:
Conversation snippets about sustainability efforts at Coachella
Being able to rapidly analyze the conversation with the help of AI helps brands to get on top of these issues and align themselves with what consumers want now, not a year from now. With topics consumers are especially passionate about, acting against (or unknowingly without) this crucial information can lead to real consequences for brands that can result in loss of sales, loss of loyal customers, and even being “cancelled”. Below we see a summary of key narratives around Coachella this year pulled from the Quid platform, all of which focus on consumers shifted priorities :
AI Summary
Key Narratives
Environmental and Cultural Initiatives in the Coachella Valley (40%)
The Coachella Valley is at the forefront of environmental and cultural initiatives, with significant efforts to restore the Salton Sea and the designation of new national monuments like Chuckwalla. These initiatives aim to protect natural resources, support Indigenous communities, and promote sustainable tourism.
Evolving Trends in Music Festivals: Sustainability and Technology (11%)
Music festivals are increasingly focusing on sustainability and technological innovation. Initiatives include eco-friendly practices like solar-powered stages and recyclable materials, as well as digital engagement through apps and interactive experiences. Festivals are shifting towards immersive events that combine art and community activities, with a strong emphasis on environmental responsibility and leveraging social media for promotion.
Brands with a sustainability focus have a huge opportunity to highlight their ethical sourcing, upcycling efforts, and eco-conscious festival essentials, and brands without should consider taking steps to refocus and align themselves with what consumers want before looking to Coachella as an opportunity.
Coachella’s massive impact on social media is also a great opportunity for brands to run social media campaigns encouraging user-generated content featuring their products. Targeted social media engagement allows brands to leverage festival-related hashtag and current Coachella trends to launch interactive, timely campaigns, such as the popular “Best Festival Look” contests. For brands that have the resources, setting up experiential booths where attendees can sample and interact with products or having employees handing out promotional merch can be great ways to leverage Coachella buzz at its peak and increase direct engagement and product awareness.
Though there are many ways to maximize Coachella’s impact for your brand, the only way see results is to be timely, relevant, and aware of trends. With these types of events, conversations peak in the weeks leading up to, during, and after the event, but go virtually silent the rest of the year; this makes preliminary research and audience analysis crucial to developing impactful campaign strategies that line up with the right audience at the right time. Collaborating with influencers can be extremely effective, but requires planning and execution before the actual event. Brands that plan ahead can take advantage of this opportunity and partner with influencers to showcase festival-ready looks and products on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube before and during the event to demo their products in real time. Beauty brands can even offer festival makeup kits and provide festival-goers with on-the-ground styling stations.
To see what’s hot and what’s not at Coachella to help brands determine what products to showcase, we can do a deeper analysis into the “glam” niche of the conversation, revealing what sank or swam with festival attendees last year, and then compare these trends to those surfacing around Coachella this yea:
The challenge to executing this strategy successfully is finding the right influencer that intersects with both a brand’s audience and the Coachella audience, because working with a bold makeup influencer isn’t going to resonate with your tech aficionados and could risk isolating your audience. Or will it? You need to know for sure, and we make quick work of understanding precisely how to interpret audience data to bucket influencers into the correct categories, identifying those influential in your vertical. This can also help identify adjacencies, as well as the actual reach and influence of creator beyond just follower count, to ensure you’re putting your marketing dollars to work where they’ll have the most impact.
Coachella is a powerful marketing opportunity for brands willing to embrace its fashion-forward and experience-driven audience. By aligning with the event’s aesthetic, trends, and culture, brands can create impactful campaigns, enhance brand perception, and drive sales.
Whether through influencer collaborations, product launches, or immersive experiences, there are numerous ways to connect with festival-goers and trendsetters alike. Let Quid do the analytical heavy lifting—delivering the insights you need, when you need them—so all that’s left is to act. Drive market share, launch smarter campaigns, and stay ahead of the curve at Coachella!