Coachella 2024: What It Takes to Livestream the Festival on YouTube

If you’ve been watching the YouTube livestream of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival from the comforts of home, you’ve probably noticed many changes.

This year, the festival rolled out a new multi-view feature, allowing viewers to watch up to four live performances at the same time, and each stage (except Do Lab, Sonora and Quasar) also has its own livestream. Since the festival returned in 2022, there has been added content profiling artists and bonus material.

Many festivals livestream on YouTube, Hulu and other platforms, but Coachella is raising the bar on production to enhance the presentation of the festival to elevate its brand and build a community for fans to interact with each other from home.

According to Springboard Productions President Hank Neuberger, who is the executive producer of the festival’s livestream content, this new direction came from Goldenvoice CEO Paul Tollett, who wanted the broadcast to feel like a festival experience of moving from stage to stage. Springboard Productions also produces the livestreams during the Stagecoach country music festival for Amazon Prime. He also worked with Lollapalooza from 2005 to 2020.

Neuberger has been producing live content for Coachella since 2007, and he’s seen the livestream hop across different platforms, go from one channel to three and now to six. During Stagecoach, the focus is on three stages.

“(Festival owners) understood early on that these broadcasts help them grow their brand, and that’s still the case. Coachella has invested more in the highest quality content of any festival in the world. It shows up on the screen and the fans online rave about the quality, variety and the look in a way that is very gratifying,” Neuberger said.

Producing a ‘more cinematic look’

What many don’t see during the livestreaming production of Coachella is the crew of over 200 people, the highest level of cinematic digital video equipment and digital lenses, thousands of feet of fiber-optic cable, a director for every stage, six video trucks and more.

“We are constantly tweaking the signal path,” Neuberger said. “For many years, we used broadcast cameras similar to what they would use in the NFL, NBA or the Oscars, but moved to what we believe is much more flattering for Coachella and the artists. We also have audio mixers at each stage doing a custom audio mix for broadcast. It’s a more cinematic look.”

Even though there’s extensive planning, all of the directors at the stages work without rehearsals and work to tell the story of what’s happening onstage in front of them. Occasional breakdowns are inevitable, but the crew is able to work around any mishaps.

“A camera could go down, a microphone could not be plugged in properly, but we’ve been very fortunate. Even though it’s a live line and the artist has a problem, that’s something I can’t control, but our technical infrastructure has been very robust and we have a lot of redundancy built in,” Neuberger said.

A space for audiences to interact

As each artist performs, fans are interacting in the live chat on the side of the screen, which was added during the 2022 festival. Kate Grigal, vice president of Strategic Partnerships for Social Factor, said fans have discussed viral trends in the chat, which are shared with festival partners, but its primary function is for an international audience to interact.

“(During Weekend 1), everybody was talking about Lana Del Rey across all the streams. Our global audience superfans were coming out in multiple languages to talk about their people and bringing a significant audience with them,” Grigal said.

The chat team includes an on-site staff and Grigal has 40 moderators. The chat is available in six different languages on channels for the Coachella Stage, Outdoor Theatre and Sahara during both weekends. An additional chat was included during Weekend 2 for the Yuma’s streaming channel.

Like any online space, the anonymity of the internet guarantees toxicity in the mix. Moderators restrict false information, hate speech or those targeting specific identities.

“People are emboldened to be the world’s best critics behind computer screens and will say things they most likely would never say in person, and we have the ability to act,” Grigal said. “It’s important for to have a place of community for the viewers and that we’re keeping it safe and kind for the artists on stage, because there’s real time reactions happening and we try to keep it clean as possible. We don’t like restrictions and have specific boundaries,” Grigal said.

Grigal couldn’t provide official numbers of how many people appear in the chat rooms, but said the view count on videos posted on Coachella’s official channel from 2022 and 2023 are a good representation.

The chat reflected concerns during COVID-19

When the chat feature was added in 2022, Coachella returned after a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic. Much of the conversation reflected an audience navigating the beginning of the post-pandemic world and were tuning in to see what the festival looked like. Others were stumbling in while tuning in and began interacting.

“We didn’t quite know as much as we do now, and provided a venue for people that otherwise wouldn’t have been able to attend because of health concerns,” Grigal said.

Two years later, the chat reflects several different communities of music fans coming together in the digital world with their own favorite stages and artists. Meanwhile, the team is scanning for trends, themes and hot topics. The team examines the data and sentiments that were expressed and are finding new ways to analyze the information each year.

It also provided effective feedback, such as the host refraining from interrupting a broadcast until a set change. While audiences are watching, information about the schedule and the available merchandise that’s available to order online also appears.

“It’s a one-stop shop opportunity. Other services don’t always have it embedded in so you can watch it in one place and chat in another. Having it all tied together makes it a better experience for the user. I think that’s important, and we’ve worked really hard to make it so they can buy their merch from the livestream, talk to other fans and figure out where all the shows are,” Grigal said.

Written by Brian Blueskye

Palm Springs Desert Sun, Published 11:22 p.m. PT April 20, 2024

Brian Blueskye is the Desert Sun’s arts and entertainment reporter.