Behind the Scenes at Coachella
That time I worked a lemonade stand
I consider myself a music festival aficionado, having been to over a dozen festivals across 4 continents, it is usually a safe bet to say that if I am within 500 miles of a festival, I will will try my hardest to be there. Needless to say, Coachella is always on my radar.
This year, however, the show seemed out of the cards — ticket prices reaching their peak, and myself over budget due to recent travel, I had to reluctantly bow out. The universe had a different plan, however, and my friend Evan informed me that not only has he secured tickets to the sold out show, but that they wouldn’t cost anything. Completely free.
He noted, though, that the tickets came with a catch. Not one to turn down serendipity, I agreed to the adventure without really fully understanding what the other end of the bargain was. What could possibly go wrong? Free Coachella.
I quickly learned that my free festival bracelet would be of the vendor variety, and that I would be cutting, squeezing, and selling Lemonade as part of a work-trade program run by the owners. In exchange for the free festival passes, we were to sell lemonade for 6 hours a day, each of the three days of the festival. It’s a lemonade stand; easy enough. My 5-year-old self would be happy that I carried on the proud tradition. My 27-year-old self wonders why I am too cheap to get a real ticket.
As quickly as the opportunity presented itself, we found us at camp, adorned in t-shirts that read “Lemonade Gangsters,” and sticky with sugar-water and lemon juice.
Many of the people working at Coachella were taking advantage of similar deals, and were usually younger, college-aged kids who didn’t have the money to buy a ticket, but want to see the show regardless. The owners are business partners that sell lemonade at half a dozen festivals in the summer, and spend the winter snowboarding all over North America.
After setting up in vendor camping (much less partying and overall more unkempt than guest camping), we had a quick and unceremonious training session prior to launching our lemonade careers. Assembling lemonade is about easy as it sounds. Cut the lemons, squeeze the lemons, add the ice, pour the sugar water. Shake. Hand to customer. Take $9.
Day 1 of the festival found me posted up near the Sahara tent — the large EDM tent away from the main stages — in a two person cart. Working side-by-side with my co-gangster, each of us taking a separate role and operating in tandem. My speciality was the squeezing the lemons. Her’s was the ability to get the Square reader to work the first time. We made a good team. This was an early shift, so in between making the odd beverage for thirsty festival goers, we had plenty of times for trading product with other vendors.
It is an unwritten rule that vendors don’t charge each other for their product, and instead trade among themselves for sustenance. It became a game between the gangsters to see who could score the most desirable food items with just one lemonade. Wander up to a food tent, walk to the front of the line, and broker a deal for whatever food they was being served. Similarly, while I was running a lemonade cart, if a fellow vendor came to me asking for a trade, I never refused and made a mental note that I could find them later for my dinner.
I managed to make wild, liberal use of the trading system, ending up with a haul of dumplings, paella, a lobster roll, several pieces of spicy pie, a Ferris wheel ticket, and stacks of $5 off coupons, for starters.
You couldn’t trade for beer though, to my dismay. In fact, the beer garden would not serve anyone with a staff wristband past a certain point, unless they had a special wristband (which I was able to trade a lemonade for).
Day 2 of Coachella was a more trying experience, as I was scheduled for an afternoon shift outside of the Do Lab, a progressive house music tent that attracted some of the more seasoned, and high, festival goers. While the cadence and the rhythm of the house music made for a solid pulse as I chopped and squeezed, we quickly became overwhelmed with patrons. Faster and faster we worked in the blazing hot sun, with no end in sight. As the day went on, the customer became more intoxicated, and I had to fend off a dozen or so individuals who wanted to reach into the ice chest, play with our tip jar, or run off with lemons.
The house music accompanying us was interjected at consistent intervals with: “Do you sell water?” “Where is the Gobi tent?” “Can I have some ice?” No, I’m sorry, we’re but meager lemonade merchants, and we can’t help with such tasks. Soon these questions came at such frequency that it could drive lesser men mad. When humans congregate in large numbers, our individuality disappears and we act in predictable ways.
As the sun rose on the start of day 3, I was exhausted, but ready to go down with the lemonade ship. Evan tapped out after the second day, opting to turn off his phone and go to sleep. I don’t blame him.
I was placed in the back-of-house staging area at the main tent for the final day. You know how they say don’t meet your heroes? I learned that lesson on day 3, where I was tasked with preparing the lemonade sugar-water-lemon mix. The lemony cocktail of the gods is simply a mixture of 3 ingredients. Truly, the emperor wears no clothes.
I mixed the concoction in a 5-gallon tub, filled a third of the way with sugar, water from a hose, and mixed together with a medium amount of lemon flavoring. The strawberry limeade, a fan favorite, was simply a few tablespoons of red food coloring added to the otherwise yellow lemonade. This mixture is then sent to one of the 10 satellite lemonade carts, where 1.5 lemons are cut, squeezed and juice and rinds added to the cup as a garnish. The squeezed lemons produce about an once or two of lemon juice, and the rest of the 20 oz drink is the sugar water mixture. Despite this, the drink tastes really refreshing, and as one of, if not the only non-alcoholic, non-water drink at Coachella, it’s no wonder they could charge $9 for a single glass.
Some quick back of the envelope math for the economics of this venture appear to be staggering. At a reasonable pace, I could prepare a lemonade in about 30 seconds, which is a maximum of 120 drinks per hour. If we are busy at 75% capacity on average an hour, that comes to 90 drinks an hour at $9 each. Across the 10 carts, that is about $8,100 revenue per hour, or a total of $291,000 for 12 hours a day, 3 day weekend. The real money is in running these vendor stands, but the lemonade owners mentioned that it’s about a five year or more waiting list to secure the spots. Additionally, I understand that Coachella takes about half of the revenue, on top of a hefty space rental price, so the economics may come closer to a reasonable amount of profit considering those costs. Needless to say, Evan and I are putting out names down on the wait list.
As the weekend began to wind down following Kendrick Lamar headline set, I finally took off my juice-stained clothing, and began to process what this all meant. I experienced something that I enjoy — a music festival—from the other side, and it changed the way I will approach these types of experiences in the future.
The most amazing part of the trip was the ability to catch a glimpse of how much planning, effort, and organization goes into making a production of this size operate. While I was only a small cog in the food and beverage machine, I was still able to appreciate the entire operation. The Thursday before, seeing the stages being prepared, constructed, and tested was incredible. Additionally, we were fortunate enough to listen to Lady Gaga rehearse and sound check at 9 am on Saturday, before the festival gates opened up, and in essence got a private show.
Working as a vendor changed my view of how I will approach festivals in the future. I felt connected with fellow workers there, those who came to work and earn a living, and less connected to the normal festival guests. There was a feeling of solidarity knowing that we are all together in the desert, working in the hot sun so that those who paid for the wristband can enjoy their weekend. As a guest, I now feel that I was oblivious to how much work goes into the process, and have a better understanding of this. This makes a case for the “adult internship,” if you are interested in a new industry or type of work, there is a lot of benefit for taking a few days to donate your time to understanding it at a deeper level.
The ability to afford a Coachella ticket, take time off of work, and purchase food and drink at full price takes a certain amount of financial privilege. Not unlike the recently infamous Fyre Festival, Coachella is a place to see and be seen. Even from the worker perspective, it takes privilege for me to be able to agree to the work-trade program, as even those who do the grunt work are doing so to enter the festival grounds, possibly taking jobs from those who might need the work.
Would I do this again? Yes, absolutely. But not for a while, I am still dusty from Coachella. However, Bonnaroo is around the corner, and I hear that they like lemonade just as much in Tennessee.
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