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Strategy April 16, 2018

Coachella Abounds With Promo Products, Branded Merchandise

By  Christopher Ruvo

Coachella is in full swing. And, not surprisingly for one of the U.S.’s biggest and most successful music festivals, there’s a profusion of festival and artist-branded promotional products for attendees to buy as keepsakes.

Held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, CA, this year’s Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival started last weekend and picks up again this coming weekend. About 125,000 people attend each weekend. Beyoncé is headlining the event.

Given the music industry’s increased efforts to push branded merchandise sales, it’s fitting that the festival is offering a wealth of T-Shirts, hoodies and much more. We especially like the soccer jersey with clear inspiration from the late 1980s/early 1990s footie lookbook, seen to the right in this pic.

Photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG.

Beyond the tees, there are also caps, tote bags, key chains, pins, patches, license plates, pillows, festival art posters, denim jackets, leggings, sports bras, coin purses, puzzles – the list goes on. Indeed, attendees can even choose to have bandanas, caps and other items personalized with embroidery on site. As we noted in a recent piece on NBA player JaVale McGee’s personal branded products, fanny packs are definitely back in style – evidenced by their appearance as a Coachella merch item. We dug the pins and patches, too. 

Also, new in 2018: Coachella is letting folks order merch within its mobile app for post-festival delivery. Say a tee you wanted was sold out. Boom – order it in the app and still get what you want. Ordering runs April 13th through April 22nd. Something else we liked? By buying certain Coachella memorabilia, shoppers will be supporting artists with disabilities. As Alicia Robinson of The Orange County Register reports, Coachella producers Goldenvoice and We Are Lions, a Chicago-based nonprofit, partnered to have two such artists create designs for 2018 Coachella shirts and pillows.

Coachella pillow. Photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG.

Perhaps the most sought-after musical artist merch came from headliner Beyoncé, whose set was hailed as riveting and historic, as she was the first African-American woman to headline the festival.

Certainly, it looked like demand for merch was high:

Coachella had fun teasing some of the merch through tweets:

If you couldn’t get to Coachella for the good times and great logoed memorabilia, take a little solace: You’ll probably be able to buy some of it on eBay before long. The memories of being there though – sorry, can’t help with that. There’s always next year.