Getting Ready for Music Festival Season
Although winter continues to hang on in certain parts of the country, I’ve already got my eye on warmer weather activities, like the time-honored tradition of rocking out at summer music festivals. Here’s a list of some the most amazing outdoor music venues in the US, as seen by our Planet satellite fleet.
Coachella
You can’t talk about outdoor music festivals without talking about Coachella. Attended by over 250,000 people during the 10-day run in 2017, the festival has grown into a world-renowned powerhouse. The 2018 headliners include The Weeknd, Beyoncé, and Eminem, and the event turns the normally sleepy town of Indio, California into musical mayhem.
Using Planet Explorer’s Compare tool with PlanetScope imagery captured during Coachella 2017, you can clearly see the explosion of cars and multi-color tents that weren’t there just days before.
Hollywood Bowl
A three-hour drive west brings us to the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, CA. The seating arrangement looks a bit like a clam shell, as seen in this crisp image captured by SkySat. The Hollywood Bowl host hundreds of musical events a year thanks to Los Angeles’ year-round temperate weather.
Bonnaroo
Hopping over to Tennessee, the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival has been going strong since 2002 and features a wide variety of musical genres, arts, and comedy performances. Hosted on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, TN, people get pretty muddy as the weekend goes on, but I’ve been told it’s worth it. I looked for some imagery from the 2017 festival and found some good PlanetScope shots of activity ramping up to the event:
The Gorge
Our last stop brings us to the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington state, an outdoor music venue known for its epic scenery and sunsets. Home to festivals like Sasquatch! and the Watershed Festival, everyone that attends a show at The Gorge agrees that there’s something special about it. I am beyond excited to see Phish play there this July, which will be my first visit to The Gorge. This timelapse shows how activity ramped up, peaked, and then ramped down during the 2017 Watershed Festival:
Have a favorite location that I didn’t cover? Sign up for a Planet Explorer account and tweet out what you find to @PlanetLabs!
