'Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert' documentary out now!

In a world where COVID 19 wasn’t a thing, this weekend would typically bombard our Instagram feeds full of influencers from around the world sipping cocktails poolside and attending infamous Revolve house parties, as Palm Springs is brought to life thanks to the iconic international music festival, Coachella.

Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was originally set to play its double weekender festival this weekend and next, however, in light of recent COVID 19 advice, the festival has been forced to postpone until October. This came as a huge blow, as this year marked the 20th edition of the festival. But it has not put a complete damper on the celebrations, with festival organisers choosing to continue to celebrate 20 wonderful years of the festival, by moving the celebrations online. That’s right, the same day as the festival would have opened its doors for the 2020 edition, the YouTube Originals documentary Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert made it’s debut online for thousands of festival fans to enjoy during the self iso comfort of their own homes, even sporting its own hashtag #couchella.

"Since our original timing of the release was essentially built around leading up to the festival, that changed once there was no April festival," says Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert executive director and head of AEG Studios Raymond Leon Roker. "After quite a lot of deliberation and several weeks of being in limbo, we made a decision to commemorate weekend one with streaming the project we had been working on so hard for the past six years."

A documentary two decades in the making, Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert is essentially like opening up the archives to relive some of the most memorable performances and backstage moments to have graced the festival from 1999 to 2019. According to producer Chris Perkel, there was enough footage to solely employ a staff member full time for an entire year to digitize the festival’s video archives;

"We ended up with over a petabyte of footage, which was a figure I had never heard of before"

For those of us who need the math breakdown (me), a petabyte is 1,024 terabytes or one million gigabytes, aka that’s a s#!t tonne of footage.

Viewers can relive (or experience for the first time) past performances from Billie Eilish, Kanye West and Travis Scott, as well as previously unreleased looks at Madonna's 2006 set at the dance stage in the Sahara tent and Daft Punk's innovative pyramid performance that same year.

The documentary also includes major performances that have defined the event over the past 20 years, including Morrissey (1999), Beyoncé's most jaw-dropping performance from 2018, that earnt her the renaming of the festival that year to #Beychella, and the infamous 2Pac hologram from 2012. In between the best bits and iconic moments, the documentary also takes the viewer on a journey of just how far the festival has truly evolved over the past 2 decades.

With new dates of October 9th - 11th and 16th - 18th, there is no confirmation yet that the original lineup for the 20th edition will remain the same. In the meantime, festival-goers can make use of the postponed dates by enjoying the documentary in their loungewear, while creatively updating their festival fashion wardrobe before the new October dates arrive.