Coachella Camping 2017

Coachella camping tips from 'Weaselchella'

Headliners for the 2017 festival are Radiohead, Lady Gaga and Kendrick Lamar. Denise Figueroa/The Desert Sun

With an elevated DJ booth, stage lights and thousands of dollars worth of speakers and equipment, the guys of Weaselchella have the festival Coachella Camping game down pat.

Weaselchella started off as a group of friends at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2010, blasting music from some house speakers in an RV camping spot, but has evolved each year to become possibly the most outrageous, inventive and enticing campsites the festival sees every year.

Now, when festival-goers head back to the campgrounds after the main stage act wraps up for the night, they can keep the party going at the Weaselchella site, where Los Angeles residents Ernie Alvarez, a 41-year-old graphic designer, and David Arellano, a 32-year-old AV company manager, will DJ into the early morning.

"We just like to do our own VIP experience," Alvarez said, "and our neighbors around us, they hear the music and come party."

Last year, during weekend one of the festival, Alvarez said more than 350 campers showed up for an after hours set.

"When you're up there and just playing music, it's amazing," Arellano said. "That's all I'm trying to do, create something because it's so satisfying."

Sounds cool, but where does the weasel come in? Well, the duo explain, it's a combination of Alvarez's instagram name, Ernweezy, and his ability to weasel his way up to the front of a crowded show. They designed a graphic with a weasel's face on it and now fly it on a flag high above the campground and wear on t-shirts.

Since 2010, the Weaselchella gang has had to get more creative as it grew. When Coachella rules banned generators in the campground, they figured out a way to power their equipment with car batteries.

"They didn't say no electricity," Arellano said, "just no generators."

Arellano is the mastermind behind making the cogs of Weaselchella turn, with preparations for the next year beginning "almost immediately" after the current festival ends. He even maps out a specific plan of how to arrange cars, speakers and equipment every year.

He guesses over the years he's spent about $10,000 on Weaselchella speakers, lights, sound mixers and batteries, but said it's almost like an obsession making everything grander than the previous year. Last year, it took the group eight hours to set everything up.

"It always seems to evolve," Arellano said. "Every year, it needs to be bigger, something more."

This year might be a little more low key than last, Alvarez said, as last year's festival acted as a defacto bachelor party for a friend of Weaselchella, but the guys will still be out their spinning sets at night.

It's a massive undertaking for people who aren't getting paid or sponsored for their work, but the duo insist all their work is worth it.

"It's to make our friends happy and make ourselves happy and people are welcome to join," Alvarez said.

"We just want people to come hang out," Arellano added.

Not everyone has the ability to set up an entire miniature music festival when they camp, so here are some more basic ways to ensure your best festival Coachella Camping experience, courtesy of the Weaselchella guys:

• Get there early to stake your claim: Getting the best campsite means waking up early and getting to the campgrounds as soon as possible on Thursday. Don't be afraid to get a little aggressive when picking out your site, but don't go overboard. 
• Stay together: If you don't drive in with your group, you're not going to end up camping anywhere near them. Meet at a secondary location ahead of time so you're not separated.
• Beware the portable toilets: You might think you're doing yourself a favor camping out close to the campsite bathrooms, but what you gain in time you're going to lose out in stench. 
• Keep an open campsite: Closing yourself off might make you feel more secure, but you can lose out on the sense of community that makes the Coachella campgrounds so special. 
• Get the party rolling early to make new friends: Daytime activities at the campsite can help you make friends that can last through the festival. Consider or getting a game of flip cup or hearts going to draw in interesting strangers. 
• Portable urinals are a must: Walks to and from the bathroom take up time and can break the party vibe. Consider investing in a portable urinal, available in male, female and unisex models, so you can go with the flow and keep the party moving.

The guys of Weaselchella are determined to create the coolest and most outrageous campsite at Coachella.

Coachella's Vestal Village Camping Party is Back

Coachella-goers who wanna keep partying after the festival - or even during - won't have to look far ... Vestal Village is back, and it's bigger than ever.

The 4 day invite-only party kicks off Thursday and runs through Sunday at the same time as Coachella, and it's just a few miles down the road at Lake Cahuilla.

From the looks of these behind-the-scenes pics we've obtained, it'll be a pretty rad scene -- camping grounds around the lake for chill time, and a gated pool area for raging time. After all, there's live music and free drinks.

The Village sits between more than 700 acres of mountains, so you can also hike, fish or go horseback riding (BYOH though).

Coachella campers get communal with yoga, haircuts and snowball fights

Amid the 90,000-plus fans who traveled each weekend to Indio for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival were revelers who, as always, flew from across the world to experience a crammed three days of music and community.

The gathering, which concluded yet another victorious two-weekend run Sunday, continued to prove why it's an international draw for the fanciest 1 percent. Dense with fun money, globe-trotters and celebrities filled area hotels, residences and retreats, then zipped around via Uber or SUV.

But since the festival's birth in 1999, just as many fellow travelers, such as Nico Garcia and his family, undertake a more humble, sustainable pilgrimage to the festival: Ride in, park, raise a tent and camp.

Like thousands of others, the Garcias waited in line Thursday and got a choice spot in the densely populated camping area. Or at least his wife, their 4-year-old son, sister-in-law and friends did. Unlike the jet-setters, Garcia was still at work and had just his bike.

"They texted me a photo of the spot, and I rolled up on my beach cruiser," said Garcia, relaxing beneath his tent with his son. Garcia's clan lives in nearby La Quinta, where he's a "professional golfer slash caddie" as well as a music fan and camper who more often escapes to California sand dunes for peace than just down the road to the Empire Polo Fields for the opposite.

Drawn by the opportunity to get lost for three days, though, Garcia was among the many fans who flocked to claim one of the thousands of plots, most of which are less than a 10-minute walk from the concert stages.

To respond (and contribute) to the demand, promoter Goldenvoice (which estimated there were more than 20,000 campers) has invested millions of dollars in expanding the offerings within the camping zone, and the result is a 72-hour-plus experiential wormhole. Once a camper is situated for the weekend, gone are worries of getting pulled over on the way home, dealing with Uber surge pricing or doing anything other than crawling into the tent at night's end.

Among the amenities: a morning farmer's market, daily yoga and Pilates, a general store, post office, locksmith, showers and a WiFi connected lounge area. During late-morning crafting sessions, soon-to-be festival partyers made signs and scepter-like navigation sticks to be employed as focal points within Sahara Tent-sized crowds.

The camping area's "town center" was a place where nighttime snowball fights in the desert actually happened; a fenced-in zone was built for the purpose. (Among the rules: "Do not make or eat yellow snow.") Headphone-assisted "silent disco" parties delivered peaceful after-hours outdoor dancing further into the night. Need a haircut or a blowout? Barbers and a beauty bar were busy from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. Want to buy a Jack White LP? Third Man Records, the artist's label, parked its traveling record truck in the camp. Dodgeball? Human foosball? Tournaments both weekends yielded victors.

The goal: to offer not only musical experiences but communal ones. Adding to ideas generated from successful European festivals like Glastonbury in England, Primavera Sound in Barcelona, Spain, and Burning Man in the Nevada desert, Coachella is harnessing the allure of its surroundings and those breezy if dusty desert winds to deliver adventures that aim to be rites of passage.

"We've got 28 festivals to play this year," Dan Snaith, founder of the Canadian beat group Caribou, told me before his Friday night set. In addition to performing at Bonnaroo in Tennessee, they'll play Glastonbury, the Flow Festival in Slovenia, Rock Werchter in Belgium and the Øya Festival in Norway.

This was Caribou's first crack at Coachella, and Snaith was struck most by the vibe, he said. "It's a different cultural experience than other festivals that we get to play in." Electronic dance music, especially, is a whole different animal stateside, he added.

Pilates instructor Paige Kilgore has seen her share of vibe, she said in the exercise area after finishing one of her morning sessions at the campground. She's been guiding classes here for the past three years.

"I've seen the tweeny-bopper denim diapers up to their chest, and I've seen an older crowd that is way more into the music," she said. She's taught unicorns — or at least people dressed like them — new poses and has dealt with her share of unbalanced partyers, yet Kilgore says she's been most surprised by the devotion.

"During a weekend like this, a lot of people think, 'Oh, my gosh, they're going to rage, and people are drunk,'" she said. "And while there is that, a lot of people want to come together and work out, stretch out a little bit because it is such a long day."

As she said this, an amped-up festivalgoer jumped onto her teaching platform, grabbed the microphone and greeted the many passersby. "My name is Sean. I'll be here all week," he said, pretending to be a comedian. "Have a great day. Complimentary drinks are available at the bar."

With that, he handed Kilgore the microphone, left the platform and headed back into the campgrounds.

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