Design took centre stage at this weekend’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. When Justin Bieber appeared on Saturday with just a laptop, a microphone and a stripped-down stage set, many of those watching at home took to social media to claim that his set-up illustrated a marked lack of effort in comparison to the maximalist, theatrical performance put on by Sabrina Carpenter a night earlier.
In truth, the two wildly contrasting productions, which were both brought to life by the same entertainment architects, Stufish, can be better understood as reflections of the very different stories each artist was telling about themselves. Carpenter, who found fame as a Disney Channel star, built a lavish fantasy landscape that paid tribute to old Hollywood. Bieber, the first true superstar of the YouTube age, turned arguably the biggest stage in America into an intimate video-sharing hangout. While the results looked nothing alike, both thrilled their respective fanbases.
It’s been exactly two decades since Daft Punk first landed their groundbreaking LED pyramid at Coachella, and this year stage designs up and down the lineup demonstrated that there are still plenty of artists willing to use the blank canvas provided by the festival’s stages to bring their unique artistic visions to life.
The only disappointment was that Anyma’s Friday night set was unable to go ahead after high winds prevented his stage from being built. The DJ said he was ‘heartbroken’, and fans will have been disappointed not to witness what looked to be an impressive new production. That’s one to look out for at weekend two.
Here are 10 of the best stage designs from weekend one of Coachella:
Sabrina Carpenter
Carpenter, as they say, understood the assignment. While the stage design for her Friday night headline set will probably be best remembered for the instantly iconic ‘Sabrinawood’ sign, her show was crammed full of extravagant set pieces and memorable moments. A strong narrative through-line took us from the twinkling lights of the Hollywood Hills, to a hike filled with dancers dressed as poodles and Dalmatians and through a vintage recording studio before delivering us to the bright lights of Hollywood Boulevard. A climactic sequence set to ‘Tears’ saw her jettisoned out of a classic car on top of a fountain of water. Carpenter has called the production ‘the most ambitious show’ she’s ever put on, and with the help of architects Stufish and lighting design from Silent House she pulled off the sort of high-concept production any Broadway musical would kill for.
Katseye
The girl group provided one of the big viral moments of the weekend by bringing out the Huntr/x vocalists from KPop Demon Hunters for a performance of their Oscar-winning hit ‘Golden’. They also delivered a simple but effective stage design that took their audience from the Sahara stage to the heights of ‘Katseye City’. Structures made up to look like just the tops of skyscrapers (featuring open windows and satellite dishes) combined with video backdrops to give the impression the LA-based group were pulling off their intricate choreography high on an urban rooftop.
Ethel Cain
Late on Friday night, Cain brought her Southern Gothic aesthetic to the Mojave Stage in haunting fashion. Through clouds of atmospheric white smoke, it was possible to make out bushes, reeds and rushes growing up out of the stage in front of a backdrop of hanging vines. Cain, wearing custom all-black Dior workwear, leaned on her microphone stand, which was designed to look like a scythe. The effect of all that greenery was less ‘natural wonderland’ and more ‘spooky Deep South horror movie waiting to happen’.
Labrinth
A day after NASA’s Artemis II crew returned to Earth, Labrinth turned up at Coachella’s Outdoor Theatre on Saturday with a space-age design all his own. Created in collaboration with creative directors Tawbox, Labrinth’s stage set was centred around a towering architectural structure flanked by lighting columns that evoked the image of rocket boosters. The designers also drew inspiration from Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and the phenomenon of gamma ray bursts, the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events in the universe.
PinkPantheress
On Saturday night at the Mojave Stage, PinkPantheress put on a thrilling dance party that doubled as a masterclass in production design. A versatile stage set became an airport arrivals lounge for the opening ‘Stateside’ sequence, as Pink touched down in the U.S., rolling a suitcase on wheels. It was there that she first caught a glimpse of her mysterious Romeo (played by Him star Tyriq Withers), and their rom-com storyline was subsequently woven in and out of the production as the backdrop shifted repeatedly, taking in locations including a moonlit moor and a sweaty nightclub. The running romantic narrative gave the show an overarching structure, but never got in the way of Pink doling out bangers.
Nine Inch Noize
Nine Inch Nails and the German electro producer Boys Noize have been playing together during the band’s recent tour, but they’d never officially put on a collaborative show before their Saturday night set on Coachella’s Sahara stage. The occasion called for something special, and the set design created in collaboration with Silent House Studios more than delivered. Trent Reznor and his wife Mariqueen sang together, flanked by Atticus Ross and Boys Noize, in the cut-out centre of a dark hillside that seemed to evoke a staircase designed by M.C. Escher. Behind them, dancers writhed like goblins. Hellishly good.
David Byrne
The former Talking Heads frontman’s ongoing ‘Who Is The Sky?’ tour, which he brought to the Outdoor Theatre on Saturday night, is an exercise in a sort of anti-stage design. The stage is kept entirely empty, but utilises vast projected backdrops that can have Byrne floating through the air above suburbia for ‘And She Was’ or simply showing off massive photos from a recent visit to nearby Joshua Tree. What’s special about all this open space is how Byrne and his band use it: they remain in continuous, choreographed motion throughout the show (even the drummers).
Justin Bieber
When Bieber first appeared on Saturday, in a beam of white light, the circular light formation high above his head seemed to evoke a UFO. As the show went on, it began to resemble something more quotidian: a ring light. Bieber’s minimalist stage design was all about drawing his audience into an intimate experience, making one of the biggest crowds to ever assemble at Coachella’s main stage feel like they were all hanging out in his bedroom singing along to his old YouTube videos together. The Ye-influenced, streamlined stage set looked almost inflatable, reminiscent of Sabine Marcelis’s Maze installation elsewhere on the festival site, but Bieber proved it was solid as he strutted over it in his Loewe boots. While the design wasn’t quite as sparse and spartan as when Bieber recently played the Grammys in just his boxers, it suggested a similar sense of open-hearted vulnerability.
FKA Twigs
Late Sunday on the Mojave Stage, FKA Twigs opened her show lying in bed. The white bed sheets created a fittingly seductive mise-en-scène, but the artist wasn’t reclining for long. After she was joined by a group of dancers, the covers were pulled back to reveal a metallic black set that was part underground Berlin rave, part jungle gym. At one point, an aerial performer danced while suspended from chains. At other times, Twigs had the space to demonstrate her expertise at both pole dancing and sword fighting. The industrial vibe extended throughout the production, from the flight case wheeled on to reveal guest dancer Honey Balenciaga to the energetic ballroom voguing sequence.
Karol G
It fell to the Colombian star to close this year’s Coachella, and she did so with a towering set design that took things back to the very start: the beginning of time, to be exact. Following an animated creation myth in the style of ancient cave paintings, a stage designed to mimic a network of prehistoric caverns was revealed featuring several levels of dancers and Karol G herself dressed in a loincloth like Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C.. That was just the launchpad for a celebratory production that also involved a carnival sequence complete with a parrot-shaped float, an all-female mariachi band and a sensual dance routine that took place in a shallow pool constructed right in the heart of the crowd. Minimalism might have worked for Bieber, but it’s not for Karol G.