If you were keeping up with all the Coachella content this weekend, you may’ve noticed how strangely forgettable it all was. Muted crowds, low-key outfits and lots of influencer complaining about the desert dust, Coachella’s big post-lockdown return didn’t seem at all triumphant. Perhaps that’s why all anyone could talk about was Revolve Festival, at least the crapstorm it turned out to be.
What is Revolve Festival and is it Coachella?
First of all, some necessary background since everyone is googling 'What is Revolve Festival?', 'Fyre Festival' and 'Is Revolve Festival Coachella?'. Revolve Festival takes place the same weekend as Coachella, about seven miles from the hot desert valley of Indio, California where the three-day extravaganza is held. Technically, it’s not part of Coachella – it’s a separate event held outside the festival hosted by clothing brand, Revolve.
The event was first held in 2017 as a private pre-and-after party for celebrities and influencers going to Coachella. According to them, much of the fun of going to Coachella is said to be the VIP afterparties and Revolve had become known for hosting the best one. Over the years of hosting, Revolve added their own musical guests and the event evolved into its own mini-festival, celebrities and influencers invited by the brand and hosted for the entire weekend. Usually, said influencers would still be attending Coachella too, but in recent years some have just travelled for Revolve Festival since they will be hosted for free and often paid to make content there.
This year, the event was bigger than ever: Post Malone, Bia and Jack Harlow were all booked to perform. But it was also the same year they started selling tickets and asking certain influencers to pay $2000 (£1,500) for the privilege of attending. According to one TikToker who works for Revolve as a designer, Brianne Olsen, there were three types of ticket: VIP, Influencer and General Admission. There were tiers of importance, others said. For example, some influencers were invited by the brand and housed in a nearby luxury hotel, while others were simply offered tickets or asked to pay. Celebrities in attendance, like Kim Kardashian, are said to have been paid to attend.
What happened at Revolve Festival?
That’s where the chaos started, it seems. When influencers arrived at the shuttle site to board buses to the festival – the only way you can travel to the festival gates – there were sectioned queues and the VIP line was getting preferential treatment. With so few buses coming, influencers report waiting for more than five hours and tension escalating among the crowds.
‘There was pushing, shoving, shouting, yanking people in front of the buses, people standing in between the buses while they were moving just to get on these buses and get to the Revolve Festival,’ Averie Bishop, a law student and Dallas-based creator, said on TikTok. ‘It was Fyre Festival 2.0.’
‘I was waiting in the VIP line with people you guys know, [people with] millions of followers, been on TV shows, we were all in the same lines… but then there was a separate line for people with VIP Artist passes which was where the elite were like the Selling Sunset cast… they were escorted right onto the first bus because they are better than us,’ Madison Cowley, who was invited as a plus one to the event, said on TikTok. ‘We were waiting and realised that nothing was happening, we heard that the buses that were coming were instructed to fill up the VIP Artist pass lines first and everyone in the “Regular” line which wasn’t even regular was left behind.
Influencers that you know and love were jumping metal fences and thinking they’re more important than me.
‘The other problem that I have is influencers that you know and love jumping metal fences and thinking they’re more important than me, cutting the entire line and calling the people they have on speed dial in order to get on these buses,’ Madison added.
Now, numerous influencers are comparing the event to Fyre Festival – where influencers and celebrities were promised a luxury music festival in the Bahamas but were left stranded without adequate accommodation or food. At Revolve, multiple influencers were reported to have fainted due to the desert heat after waiting for hours and many complained about the lack of water available to them.
Of course, not everyone has sympathy for the attendees. ‘On this day influencers realized that they are just regular people and no one is more important than the next person,’ one TikTok user commented. ‘Influencers being humbled is my favourite Coachella event,’ another added.
It does seem a stretch to compare this to Fyre Festival, since most of us regular people would expect to wait for a long time in a queue for a popular festival and would probably take water and snacks knowing we’ll be, you know… in the desert and all.
Revolve are yet to release a statement about the event, but with the viral nature of the TikTok’s calling them out they might have to soon before their entire influencer roster starts taking the brand down in the name of #content.
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