From Glamping to Glastonbury: the ultimate UK Coachella comparison
Whenever the warm weather sets in over London, the classic humidity-exhaust fume combination is never far behind. While the worst of the heatwave is thankfully over, the smog has found me reminiscing over the dusty days of Reading festival from last year. They say distance only makes the heart grow fonder, and the same thing clearly applies with time - memories of the main stage are almost enough to forget the back pain and lack of sleep. Coachella season always brings a certain level of jealousy, but the added nostalgia for gcse summer meant my fyp was extra painful this year. Finishing a long day of revision to open tiktok to bieberchella was not exactly an enjoyable experience. However, it did spark the inspiration for this deromanticised (and only slightly petty) comparison between UK festivals and Coachella, to decide once and for all whether the FOMO is justifiable - or just another form of procrastination.
Crowds
There’s a reason London concerts get so much favoritism from performers - UK crowds are notoriously loud. Add hours of waiting under the sun for a chance to be barricade for your favourite artist, and this dedication suddenly becomes a frenzy at festivals. Modern day hysteria, if you will. This does also mean that the crowds become pushy really quickly. You should be fine as long as you’re not wearing open toed shoes (don’t ask), since everyone reading this is armed with the brutal experience of a godolphin lunchtime rush. The moshpits would be equivalent to katsu chicken day - or at its worst, bao buns.
At the end of the day, chaos is a sign of passion. Even if they don’t know all the lyrics, a UK crowd can be trusted to dance and scream along regardless - at our preferred volume, songs are really not that different from football chants, so maybe it's a nationalistic thing.
On the contrary, Coachella crowds are so dead that even the artists seem to be upset at times. The videos are reminiscent of a zombie apocalypse, or our sixth form population queuing up for the coffee machine before morning form. Namely, dead on arrival. This could be blamed on the live stream muting the crowd, but cutting edge journalism from our team (see: my favourite youtuber’s vlog) tells me this goes deeper. It seems that everyone is so concerned about sounding like a dying bird in their videos, that no one is singing at all, because literally the whole crowd is constantly filming. I get it, the videos aren’t postable otherwise, but the collective effect is depressing. UK festivals definitely win this one.
Artists
The quality of performers at UK festivals depends on the size, so for convenience I’ll refer to Reading/Leeds. The quality is generally high, with a good variety in genre. The only issue is when different genres are concentrated onto one day, so if you’re not into that music sets with songs you actually recognise become a lot harder to find. On one hand, this means that you can genuinely discover new music, which is kind of the point of festivals anyways. On the other hand, heavy metal really does start to blend together after a while. The lineup quality does slightly change each year, but generally it’s good and there will always be a few artists you know and love on any day.
Regardless of influencer camping, loss of festival culture and high prices, the reason people keep on returning to Coachella is the setlist, and this year was no different. Of course Justin Bieber headlining was generational, but so many smaller artists with hit songs were also there. Literally my whole summer playlist could be found in random side sets and artists brought on stage. From Labrinth to Blood Orange, Coachella 2026 was a convoluted network of hits, which I’m extremely jealous to have missed out on. It’s hard to tell where the different genres of each day begin and end, because of the sheer overlap of talent. Coachella wins this one for sure, but we will see if this article is dated when the setlist for next year comes out.
Camping
Rain or shine, the sleeping situation at a UK festival can be counted upon to be bad. Whether your tent is being flooded or converted into a sauna, all the worst parts of the weather are trapped in a 2 square foot microclimate - exactly what you want to return to early in the morning. The walk to the tents is also insanely annoying, especially if you’ve forgotten something and you need to trek all the way back to your site from the main stage. The one perk is that all the additional walking makes you so exhausted that you probably won’t even notice the blaring noise as you drift off to sleep! However, waking up to it (and the smell of overpriced fast food) is not as pleasant…
Coachella camping is laughable by comparison, if you can even call it that. The worst it ever gets is car camping, but even then the boot is extended to a teepee the size of my backyard. People bring anything and everything to Coachella - decor, couches, the odd AC - the peak of practicality! That said, the drama accompanying Coachella Air BNBs makes it hard to appreciate the actual walls that they come with. Sudden cancellings and price surges were a common theme this year, as was walking miles to get to said Air BNBs because of overpriced taxis. I guess no festival can be freed from the 20k step minimum. I’d call this a tie - the unpredictability at Coachella cancels out the luxury, regrettably.
Outfits
The standard UK festival outfit is simple - wellies, jean shorts, and a going out top if you’re feeling fancy. Once you get over the initial weirdness of wearing such a top at 10AM, UK festival outfits are quite fun, because of how low effort they are. Only so much can be done on the floor of a cramped tent and a phone camera as a mirror, and by the end of the festival the bedraggled look kind of becomes a badge of honour, if you manage to pull it off. Is that smudged mascara, or a Kate Moss 2012 inspired smokey eye? If you can’t tell, that means the look is fulfilling its purpose.
Coachella outfits are the exact opposite. The influencer olympics means outfits have become spectacle. The less functional, and the more likely to break the second you walk wrong, the better. The -chella suffix added onto every brand deal that bagged the influencers a ticket fittingly sounds like the name of a virus, because this mentality has spread far beyond their online platforms. Regular people watching from home have been infected with sky high expectations for the weekend. Jean shorts don’t cut it in the desert, and many people have been paying the price. The devils wears prada sequel being promoted around the same time definitely did not help lower audience egos, if the cutting comments are anything to go off of. Coachella outfits definitely win in terms of looks, although the majority of these outfits are uncomfortable and will be discarded as soon as the weekend is over. UK festivals, for once, win for sustainability here.
Surprisingly, Coachella and the UK festivals have tied! It’s rare for Unpublished to be spreading any sort of positivity about the UK, because of how much time we spend on the school system and weather, but for once the facts have (unfortunately) spoken for themselves. We hope you enjoyed and that you all stay safe this festival season. Even if you missed out on bieberchella, you can now have the comfort of knowing your future or past gcse summer is atleast equal to the influencer olympics!
xoxo Unpublished
Comments