Coachella looks like fun and glamour for influencers. Behind the scenes,
they fiercely strategize
[April 11, 2026]
By KAITLYN HUAMANI
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sam Mintesnot had checked off everything she possibly
could have from a long list of to-dos in preparation for the Coachella
music festival. She crafted the best outfits, got her hair and nails
done, booked a one-way ticket to Los Angeles and flew out on Tuesday
with a spreadsheet full of ideas for videos she could post related to
the festival.
The only problem was that just days before the Coachella kicked off on
Friday, she didn’t have a ticket — at least, not yet.
Mintesnot is a content creator, and she was seeking an invitation from a
brand to join them at the annual festival in Indio, California, that is
sometimes called an “influencer Olympics.” She posted across her social
media platforms about her ticket-less journey in hopes of landing a pass
to Coachella in exchange for posting videos about the brand and
experience.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” she said. “There’s so many
opportunities out there.”
Coachella, rife with Instagrammable moments, is a mutually beneficial
opportunity for creators and businesses alike. The social media content
that comes out of the sprawling music festival screams spontaneity, but
industrious planning is often buzzing behind the scenes weeks, or
sometimes even months, in advance. Securing brand partnerships, lining
up sponsored content opportunities and building out a content calendar
require patience, strategic thinking and business acumen.
Content creators are often the butt of jokes online for enterprising
habits like shamelessly requesting access to events or free merchandise.
But for some — including Mintesnot — it works. She received an
invitation to the festival from YouTube on Wednesday, just two days
before the two-weekend-long event began.
Monetizing music festival attendance
Coachella, in its 25th edition this year, has been an annual mainstay of
internet culture. Both weekends of the festival are sold out, but global
audiences can view a livestream on YouTube to see performances from
headliners Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Karol G, along with
dozens of other artists. The video-sharing platform offers fans
livestreams of seven stages simultaneously as well as creators' videos
and other Coachella-related content.
Creators capture not only performance clips but everything else about
their Coachella experience, from the glamorous brand events and freebies
to the more mundane bathroom lines and food options.
The festival is the largest marquee livestream music event YouTube does,
said Matt McLernon, the company's senior manager of artist partnerships
who has helmed its relationship with Coachella.
“Seeing how much the creator side has breathed this whole additional
life into it — what’s on the stage, the creators, the fans, the kind of
intersection of all of them, of what happens from there — it’s really
truly magical,” he said. “There’s as many cameras pointed at the actual
artists on stage as there are amongst the crowd.”
The monetization paths for creators vary. For fashion and beauty
influencers, shopping tools that are built into platforms like TikTok
and YouTube offer a way to earn commissions. This is a reliable route to
a big payout for something like Coachella, where swaths of people are
seeking outfit and makeup inspiration, or are just curious about the
year's trends.
Magdaline Janet, a beauty YouTuber, said YouTube Shopping has allowed
her to become a full-time content creator.
“It’s huge because Coachella essentially is a beauty and fashion show
along with music,” she said.
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Festivalgoers are seen during the first weekend of the Coachella
Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club on Saturday,
April 12, 2025, in Indio, Calif. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP,
File)
 For some creators, it pays off to
purchase a ticket and travel independently for the festival, even
without a brand invitation. The engagement they get from
Coachella-related videos — in the buildup, in real time and in
retrospect — often translates to a net profit.
Sydney Morgan, a content creator known for her special effects
makeup, bought her own ticket. She is staying in a rented home with
her friends who are also content creators — the Airbnb was specially
selected to look good in videos and she created an itinerary to
accommodate the group’s respective filming plans, she said.
“Me and my friends like to joke that Coachella’s our favorite
holiday,” Morgan said. The group was traveling to Indio on Wednesday
to have a full day devoted to content creation before the musical
sets kicked off. “We talk about it all year and we romanticize the
crap out of it, and I know that our audience does the same thing,
especially those that can’t be there in person.”
Audiences are curious, so creators ‘keep ’em fed’
Morgan mapped out extensive plans for a long-form video focused on
her festival fashion and several short-form videos.
Like Morgan, many creators go in with a plan for content they want
to film during the festival, but as entertainment news host and
content creator Louis Levanti said, the key to mastering the
festival is a “willingness to adapt.” Levanti is a full-time content
creator but previously worked in digital video production and media,
and he said he takes those skills into his content planning now.
“It’s important to tell the story from your lens as quickly but as
accurately and efficiently as possible,” he said. “I do really think
of it as a newsroom. I do look at every story as like, ‘How do I
build this into more than just a headline?’”
Levanti is also attending Coachella this year with YouTube, but he
said there's value in using this year's festival to build
relationships with other brands for future festivals and
opportunities. Some brand deals, like Levanti's past Coachella
collaborations with Coca-Cola and Absolut Vodka, can come with
restrictions on what content creators can and cannot post and what
other brands they can work with.
“It’s a great opportunity where there’s no constraints or stress on
me to make content, which makes it easier for me to do that while
also appealing to more brands,” he said.
While the brands at the festival, the fashion trends and artist
lineups change with each year, the constant at Coachella is an
insatiable appetite online for any and all festival-related content.
And these creators are eager to let their prep work pay off to meet
that demand.
“We want to feed the audience, keep 'em fed, give them good content
and have fun while doing it,” Morgan said.
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