Jaunted

Festivals

Coachella Post-Mortem: Scarlett Johansson Sings, Parking Delays Sting

April 30, 2007 at 3:07 PM | 0 Comments

The 2007 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, the giant Indio California music festival featuring everyone from Rage Against the Machine to Willie Nelson, went off with plenty of hitches this past weekend.

While Scarlett Johansson (who joined the Jesus and Mary Chain to badly sing the chorus of "Just Like Honey"--according to reports), Drew Barrymore, and Lindsay Lohan were all spotted amongst campers and concert-goers this past weekend, the real question for those considering road tripping to this festival in the future is where are the bottlenecks?

After listening to tipsters and surfing the message boards here are our quick and dirty post-Coachella tips:

·  Take half the 200 or so daytime parking staff workers and have them direct exit traffic.  This was the worst thing ever.  Yes, worse than the Silversun Pickups' set and mid song banter.  After two hours of bedlam, an attendee finally showed up to direct traffic.

·  Double the number of Female pat down/bag check lines--this should not be a hard job to fill.

·  Will Call is a mess.  Avoid it at all costs.

· If you are considering going to the festival alone, go for it. There is a popular Onsite-Camping-All-Alone-Club, which starts up on the Coachella message boards months before the festival.

· Those looking for a camping alternative should try Palm Spring hotels like the Desert Moon Resort, where rooms were available as late as last Friday night.

Parking and traffic issues are going to happen when an estimated 180,000 people attended a music festival.  In general, police reported few problems, and most festival attendees felt the weekend was extremely well organized, aside from the parking issues.

[Photo: exlposive laugher, maggiejumps]

Related Stories:
· Festivals [Jaunted]
· Coachella Map [coachellamap.com]