ANAHEIM, Calif. — Coachella and Stagecoach have wrapped for the 2025 festival season. The annual music festivals take place back to back to back each April at the Empire Polo Club in Indio.

While the festivals take place on the same grounds, there are quite a few differences between the two besides the lineup. From the music, food, activations and more, here are the key variations that give each festival its identity.

The music

Coachella brings together a variety of music genres, giving festival-goers a taste of different styles and the opportunity to find new sounds. On top of that, each stage or tent has its own genre, style or vibe. On the Coachella main stage, you’re typically going to find the most mainstream music, which makes sense as it’s where the headliners perform each night. The outdoor theater became a place to vibe and recharge as you listened to acts such as the LA Philharmonic, Clairo, Parcels and even Zedd to get some “Clarity.”

Stagecoach has traditionally been a festival with solely country music on the lineup. However recently it’s been trying to embrace the times by having artists like Backstreet Boys, Lana Del Rey and Mumford & Sons featured to bring in more people. While it’s debatable if the core crowd of Stagecoach attendees are on board with this shift, the festival has sold out the last two years, indicating that the general public is embracing the change.

Because of this shift we also saw some artists perform three weekends back to back at the Empire Polo Club grounds. This included Shaboozey and T-Pain, who performed on the main stage at Coachella and the Palomino tent at Stagecoach.

The booze

Stagecoach has historically sold more alcohol in its first day than Coachella does during both weekends combined. This is on-brand for Stagecoach as country music has quite a few songs and lyrics dedicated to drinking a cold one, so its not surprising to see beer as the drink of choice for festival goers. Headliner Luke Combs kept up with his tradition of punting a red solo cup of beer into the audience.

The New Bar also returned to both festivals this year, providing mocktails and nonalcoholic beverages options to festival goers. New this year, the New Bar was moved from the Indio Central Market space it was at in 2024 for Coachella to be closer to the Beer Barn, and closer to where it was for Stagecoach last year.

Both weekends also have a few speakeasies hidden on the grounds for attendees to find and enjoy a refreshing beverage. New this year, during weekend two of Coachella, Ed Sheeran — a last minute addition to the lineup — put together his own speakeasy labeled “the old phone” where attendees entered through a green phone booth. Some lucky fans even got to see the singer perform in the speakeasy in addition to his set on the Mojave stage.

The stage layout

If you were to overlay the maps of each festival over each other, you might feel like half of the Coachella festival grounds is missing at Stagecoach. There’s no Do Lab, the Sahara tent is closed off, the Indio Central Market food hall becomes the stage and backstage area for the Mane Stage and the Outdoor Theatre becomes the VIP area for watching the show.

Speaking of main stages, the Coachella main stage where the headliners perform faces south toward the Spectra Tower, whereas the Stagecoach Mane Stage rotates to face west, toward Diplo’s Honky Tonk.

The stages and tents that do stick around also get renamed, so the Yuma tent becomes Diplo’s Honky Tonk, the Mojave tent turns into the Palomino stage and the Gobi tent becomes the Yellowstone activation as well as a food hall to buy snacks, drink and sit at a table to rest.

Notably, the Quasar stage and Red Bull Mirage didn’t stick around for Stagecoach and that area turns into the Compton Cowboys space. The 12 peaks area is no longer VIP for Stagecoach as it is for Coachella. Instead, the space becomes open to everyone to grab a bite to eat, watch the Mane Stage monitor from the Honkytonk Sky Bar and wander around to find the hidden tropical speakeasy.

New for 2025, the Rose Garden VIP area that’s typically only been part of Coachella was available for those with VIP wristabands at Stagecoach and was reimagined as the Rose Garden Saloon.

You’ll also notice as you walk around the Stagecoach festival ground, that there are tons of TV monitors stationed throughout to watch the Mane Stage performances. Not only does this help get a better visual of what’s happening from the GA area, but these screens are also in areas such as the Beer Barn, Honkeytonk Sky Bar and Palomino Plaza.

The seating

At Coachella fans are in the crowds at each stage. The grass is still fresh during weekend one so it’s not uncommon to see people sit on the ground further away from the stages to rest their feet and enjoy the music.

Stagecoach is a similar vibe to other country music festivals where attendees can bring in their own lawn chairs to sit in in designated areas to watch the shows. T-Mobile returned to sponsor the Mane Stage this year and with it had a Magenta Lounge area for T-Mobile customers to watch the performances from. Additionally, each day when gates open T-Mobile was gifting a select number of free lawn chairs to customers for them to use to watch the Mane Stage performances.

There also are assigned seats that attendees can buy, closer to the stage. The VIP area near the Mane Stage has bleachers for those with wristbands to sit in as well.

The food

Each festival has plenty of food vendors stationed throughout the ground. You’ll see some overlap between the two weekends of classic festival and fair foods like funnel cakes, hot dogs and pizza. During Coachella you’re going to tend to see some more trendy, healthier options like acai bowls, sushi and vegan cuisine. During Stagecoach it’s all about the BBQ. BBQ brisket, BBQ grilled cheese, BBQ mac & cheese, BBQ quesadilla, you name it.

Unique to Coachella is the Indio Central Market that serves as a food hall, housing many Southern California eateries and providing a nice place to cool down and listen to a performance happening at the Outdoor Theatre.

A big crowd draw at Stagecoach is Guy Feriri’s Smokehouse, which is arguably a headliner performance in itself. People rush to the Smokehouse as if the rope drop for a new ride at Disneyland, trying to get up close to the action so they can get free samples of the food being made in front of them and get photos and autographs from the Stagecoach performers who come to partake in cooking demonstrations.

The art

Coachella is a music and art festival so it makes sense that art installations are big — literally the size of them is pretty massive. The art itself has changed over the years from pieces to admire, to backdrops for social media posts. The other unique thing is many of the pieces have become functional as places to lounge during the day. For instance the Le Grand Bouquet by UCHRONIA, which was made to look like inflatable flower balloons, had bean bags at the bottom. The flowers also provided shade during the day.

The Spectra rainbow tower sticks around for all three weekends, providing air conditioning inside as attendees make their way up to the top and back down.

As for Stagecoach, you’ll see some art pieces, but they’re primarily Stagecoach signs themed around the festival that attendees line up to take a photo from.

The merch

Artist merchandise is a big deal at Coachella, so much so that the headliners now have their own merchandise booths where they sell exclusive merchandise themed just for the festival. Other artists sell limited edition festival merch as well that can be purchased from the merchandise tents when you first enter the grounds. You’ll also tend to see festival-goers purchase merchandise to change into after the sun sets and it starts to cool once they realize their fashion forward outfit isn’t doing much to help them withstand the cold weather.

Artist merch can also be purchased at Stagecoach, but it isn’t as prevalent as Coachella. The main merchandise tent had a long line as soon as gates opened, and became a popular spot in the evening when festival-goers were looking for any layers they could find to keep them warm.

The fashion

On the topic of clothing, festival fashion is big at Coachella. While the early days of the festival saw the crowds in comfortable band tees and sensible walking shoes, that went out the window for many in the 2010s with the rise of Instagram and influencer culture. Coachella became less about going to Coachella and more about showing people you were at Coachella, and a part of that is showing your outfit online.

This year it seemed like the intense festival fashion had started to scale back as more people leaned toward cute clothes that were still comfortable enough to dance the night away in. Just like last year, cowboy culture was a Coachella fashion trend, and with that we also started to see more interest in Stagecoach festival fashion.

From bedazzled boots and cowboy hats, to sparkly fringe dresses it was as if Taylor Swift’s early concert looks were making a comeback, and just in time for the predicted re-release of her debut album this year. Stagecoach fashion also saw a lot of red, white and blue ensembles were American flag overalls seeming to be the outfit of choice for many men attending. You could also start to piece together who was attending for the classic country sound versus who was new to the festival because of Lana Del Rey, the Backstreet Boys and other artists who were dipping their toes in country music.

The camping

Coachella camping was a mess for both weekends, but for different reasons. Weekend one’s camping situation gained mainstream media attention before the festival even began. Cars were lined up for hours, people couldn’t get water or go to use the bathroom, and Goldenvoice went to the La Quinta City Council to apologize for what had happened and do better for weekend two. Luckily, it was a much smoother operation getting campers in the following weekend as organizers started letting people in earlier and had more check-in points for security to do car checks. The downside for those attending weekend two camping, was that the wind was much more intense, and belongings were flying all over the festival grounds, even leading to some cars that were parked on-site to get damaged and scratched up as gear flew up into the air and landed on their vehicles.

As for the camping experience, one could argue that it’s a festival in itself. Not only do they have their own DJs performing on the campgrounds the day before Coachella kicks off, they also have plenty of activities, food booths and more for attendees to stay busy when their not at the festival grounds.

Rather than pitching up a tent, at Stagecoach it’s all about RV camping. Traffic is known to be rough getting in, taking hours to check every RV to make sure it’s up to festival safety. However, once the RVs are in, the party begins. As you walk around the RV park, you’ll see groups playing cornhole, drinking games and more classics pre Stagecoach activities.

The crowd

Many people note that influencer culture has taken over weekend one of Coachella, and that weekend two is for the “normies,” aka the everyday people who go for the music. Because of this there’s often a different vibe as well. More people are on their phones, posting online, rather than dancing at the festival. Stagecoach is similar to weekend two where you often seeing groups of friends dance with each other during mane stage performances, taking in the music.

However this year it appeared more brands are starting to send influencers to Stagecoach, which could indicate another sign that the country music festival is blending more with the Coachella crowd.

You’re going to see a lot more celebrities, both on the stage and in the crowds, if you go weekend one of Coachella than you will during weekend two or Stagecoach for that matter.

At Stagecoach it’s more common to see families and children throughout the grounds, where as if you see young kids and babies at The festival’s got a younger crowd this year, and we’re calling it Babychella

Love and lust also seem to be in the air. Not only will you see couples slow dancing together, but you’ll see them sharing a smooch as well. We also spoke with female festival goers who attended both Coachella and Stagecoach and many noted they were getting approached and hit on by men more often at Stagecoach, which took away from their experience.

The livestreams

Coachella’s official livestream is held on YouTube, where viewers partaking in “Couchchella,” the stay-at-home way to watch the sets, can switch between the different stages. On YouTube, there’s an ability to rewind and pause if you missed a set. This is also beneficial to those who go in person to Coachella to be able to watch back a performance they might have missed that day and they’re getting ready to go to bed, or doing their makeup the next day.

Coachella performers also seem to dedicate time in their set to play up their performance for the camera and online viewers, neglecting the people in front of them who paid to be there. The artists know that no matter the size of the crowd in front of them, there’s even more people watching the show online, which is why during weekend one especially they crank out the surprise guest appearances. Coachella artists also do it big with elaborate sets, especially on the main stage.

The Stagecoach livestream is hosted by Amazon Prime and can be streamed both on their site, app and through Twitch. There’s two channels that have hosts recapping the day and conducting interviews with artists as the switch between performances on the Mane Stage, Palomino and Diplo’s Honky Tonk. The channel is like watching live televison, so once the performance airs, that’s that.

You don’t see the Stagecoach artists performing for the online audience as you do with Coachella because they’re focused on the die-hard country fans in front of them. It’s hard to say how many people tune in for the Coachella livestreams than do for Stagecoach, by the Mane Stage artists take advantage of the potential additional exposure by having their band name as the screen backdrop, helping both in person and online attendees know who’s playing if their passing by or tuning in.

At Stagecoach you’re also not going to see as many surprise guests, unless you’re watching Jelly Roll’s headlining performance who seemed to bring out another artist every other song. The artists that are brought out, tend to be less of the Coachella wow factor, and more of a star on the rise or an country legend like Garth Brooks.

The length

While both festivals take place over three days, not only are Coachella’s two weekends long, but the performances go later. On Friday Lady Gaga’s Coachella performance was scheduled for 11:10 p.m. but Mustard had the latest scheduled start time of the whole weekend at 11:50 p.m. Travis Scott was scheduled to take the stage at 11:40 p.m., but during weekend one he didn’t come on until midnight.

At Stagecoach on the other hand, the headliners take the stage at 9:30 p.m. each night, and if you want to stick around for late night in the Pallomino, that happens from 11:10-11:55 p.m. The final DJ set at Diplo’s Honky Tonk starts at 9 p.m. and ends before midnight.

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