“We’ve long waited to get here!” proclaims Jesus Medina as he dishes burritos to crowds of hungry people at Coachella. This music festival is returning to California’s California desert three years after it was last.
Following a long absence caused by Covid, Coachella Valley businesses are prospering thanks to returning one of the music’s most coveted events, which is a boon to the region that regards festivals as the primary economic engine.
With just slightly over 90,000 inhabitants, Indio’s slogan is “The City of Festivals,” festivals that bring in a minimum of three million dollars of direct income in the first place, according to city statistics, which includes ticket sharing dollars as well as transient occupancy tax from campers.
Businesses benefit from hotels, liquor stores, and gas stations saw the number to a new height until the pandemic stopped the live show and placed Coachella on a permanent hiatus.
“We were all set for 2020, but the pandemic killed all of it,” Medina told AFP Spanish. The company he runs, “Cena Vegana”, has sold over a hundred thousand burritos Friday on the Coachella festival’s opening day.
“It isn’t over and the lines are never-ending -This is an excellent chance to us.”
Coachella is attended by over 125,000 people each day over two three-day long weekends.
Hotels are home to thousands of guests in nearby areas like Palm Springs, the resort zone bordered by the San Jacinto mountains and known for its palm trees and golf courses and spas.
The business was “quiet for a long time for a few years, but now we’re very busy,” said Char Pershing, Manager at Zoso Hotel. Zoso Hotel.
The majority of the 162 rooms of Zoso have been booked for guests working or attending the festival. Almost all of them are booked during the second weekend of the festival.
In 2019, the last time Coachella visitors poured into this valley, the singer was working at a different hotel and said that more were coming to town to see the show this year.
“People are cooped up for many years… they’re desperate to be outside and take in the fresh air,” she said.
“I realize that people come to the music but they also come for more.”
“Reminder that I was here.”
for Mitchell Car, who works in a bustling vintage clothing and accessories store, Coachella is a golden chance to increase sales.
“Lots of times , people show up without wearing their attire,” Car told AFP.
The festival offers a retro vibe with bell-bottomed silhouettes of the past and a flurry of neon and glitter that add sparkle to the Empire Polo Club grounds, where the stages pop up every year.
“They’re always on the lookout for what’s trending? What’s unique?” Car asked. Her primary clients are mostly from New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. “I was able to get an artist in the store for Harry Styles in the store yesterday.”
Food options are plentiful at the festival and in the restaurant, where Santiago Restrepo is dishing up traditional Venezuelan arepas to concert-goers who want to eat.
“At the beginning it was difficult for us because it was the first time we’ve ever used this model of sales,” he told AFP. “But once people began arriving at the mid-point of the afternoon, we were all set.”
“After 4:00 pm and we were on the move until 11:30 am.”
A few steps from where Coachella crowds are gathering to purchase souvenirs in celebration of the return of the festival.
The official store took around an hour to get to the top of the line, where around 20 people handed out merchandise, with the priciest item costing $150 for a sweatshirt from 2024.
“Some people have spent hundreds of dollars”, stated one seller who requested anonymity.
Charlie Dawson, who flew to the country to New York, told AFP that he simply wants “something that is to remind me that I’m here.”
