I’m not a live concert or festival person. The very thought of that type of environment makes my anxiety skyrocket. Because of that, I never paid much attention to the Coachella scene. That changed last year when I found out that one of my favorite K-Pop groups, ATEEZ, would be performing (along with a bunch of other artists I like) and that it would all be streamed for free on YouTube. I was sold!
Everything wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though. I ran into problems trying to track who was performing when and on which stage. Sometimes I didn’t realize that two sets would overlap, and other times I missed performances altogether because I miscalculated the time zone differences. I spent a lot of time jotting down notes, doing careful planning, and watching the clock like a hawk. It was a headache.
Well, this year Coachella took pity on me and released the Coachella Livestream app. I caught an ad for it while I was looking up the schedules on the Coachella website. It handles all of the scheduling and offers alerts for the performances, thereby eliminating all of last year’s stresses. It has made such a positive difference in my Coachella experience.
Overview
I used the Android version of Coachella Livestream, though the app is also available for iOS. I haven’t had any performance issues—no crashes or glitches at all. It’s not the smallest app, but the 142 MB of storage that it uses (according to my phone) isn’t unreasonable given its hearty features.
There is a very calm feel to its appearance. There’s something so soothing and relaxing about the color scheme. The background is a dark blue/purple, the text and icons are white, and the accents are gray-ish/purple and peach. The sans-serif font is incredibly easy on the eyes. It looks like a phone’s dark theme. Midnight desert vibes.
The app is well organized. Even though there’s a lot going on, it doesn’t feel busy or overwhelming. It’s sorted into four tabs, which are arranged along the bottom of the screen:
- Home – hosts links to the YouTube page for each of the stages (“channels”), a notification center, and a news section, as well as links to Coachella’s main YouTube channel, merchandise store, and social media accounts.
- Schedule – lists all of the artists and details about their sets. More on this next.
- Videos – contains clips from the artists’ sets and a bookmarks section (“Watch Later”).
- More – collects miscellaneous stuff like links to the other Coachella app (for people who are actually there), the socials again, Livestream’s settings, and playlists they’ve compiled.
Creating Your Schedule
The Schedule section is where the magic happens. Across the top of the page are tabs for both weekends and your customized schedule. There’s also a search bar so you can look up a specific artist.
It’s not hard to learn how to use the app from there. There is a dedicated tab for each date/day of the two weekends. Tap a date/day to see a list of every artist scheduled for it. The artists are arranged into slots on a vertical list that includes their photo and details about their set. Tapping on the slot will send you to that stage’s YouTube page. Most importantly, the “plus sign” to the far right of each artist’s slot allows you to add their set to your schedule. It’s all so convenient!
If you don’t like the list view, you can switch to a grid view too. All of the information and functions are the same, but it looks more like a true calendar. The list view is more efficient if you’re looking at the schedule on a smartphone, in my opinion.
There are multiple options for seeing your complete schedule. First, there’s a My Schedule tab that lists everything you selected for each date/day. You can also download cute graphics for each date/day that list your artists and their set info. Lastly, you can share those graphics online. This system works well. I downloaded the graphics and posted them to my Threads and Bluesky profiles to show my weekend watch list.
I would like a few more options for the graphics. I wish I could download all of the graphics in one go instead of having to download them individually. More choices for the graphics’ backgrounds would be cool too. At a minimum, I would like different backgrounds for the two weekends so I can distinguish them at a glance.
Adding Your Calendar To The Mix
Additionally, it’s possible to add your schedule to a calendar app. Once you’ve compiled your schedule, you can give the app permission to access your calendar app (Google Calendar in my case) and it will add those performances to your calendar.
The calendar-sharing feature is helpful to me. There are times when I can’t check my phone to see the schedule on Coachella Livestream. I could check my social media accounts to see the schedules I posted, but it’s much easier to use Google Calendar to see what’s coming up. Plus I can get alerts that way.
A minor problem with the calendar integration: the set durations are listed as being five minutes long. My guess is that there’s no point in listing the end times in Google Calendar when Coachella Livestream never lists them. If you want to know that info, you can look at the official calendars on the website. Most of the sets don’t end on time anyway.
Getting Your Notifications
Another one of the app’s most important features is its notifications. As I mentioned earlier, there’s a notification center on the Home tab where you can see all of your past notices about show times and other timely information.
Notifications also come in handy outside of the app. It will alert you five minutes before a set on your calendar starts that tells you the who, where, and when. Even better, it gives you a sneak peek at who’s up next on your schedule too (and it will notify you again when that performance is five minutes away.)
The notifications are satisfyingly prompt. They always go off exactly five minutes ahead of time. I appreciate that so much! I have other apps that are supposed to do the same thing, but they often notify me 10-15 minutes after the show starts. It drives me crazy.
Verdict
The Coachella Livestream app is worth its weight in gold, for real! I was able to concentrate on the performances without worrying about the fine details, which streamlined the entire experience.
Aside from a few nitpicks, I have no complaints. I’m so happy this app exists. I hope they continue to develop and improve it for next year. I can’t go back to the old way.