Editors Take: Production faults and bizarre sets, create hassle for festival go-ers

Concert promoter Goldenvoice always finds a way to vitally screw up the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in some form. This year, Goldenvoice failed massively with its security lay-out, all but guaranteeing massive wait times for festival goers.

Goldenvoice punished shuttle-users by requiring them to endure an extra search before their admittance into the bowels of the Empire Polo Club, after which they were subjected to yet another search before the festival grounds. Chaotic, understaffed and almost uncomfortably thorough, this security checkpoint was a complete disaster on Friday — some Coachella attendees reported waiting more than three hours to get into the festival.

The festival may want to reconsider its bathroom situation too. Porta-potties located in bunches between each of the festival’s three tent-stages became increasingly crowded as the weekend went on, until it became difficult to use them at all. The festival needs to consider adding more restrooms next year and improving upon their overall hygiene, as well.

Coachella could also use better scheduling, as well. Time conflicts abounded throughout the weekend (just how does one choose between the Black Keys, M83 and Explosions in the Sky?). Sunday, however, was considerably dull throughout the beginning of the day, with only a few interesting acts until the late afternoon.

Coachella has some fine food offerings, with culinary items from various international cuisines — KCRW even did a feature on the festival’s food. Still, there is absolutely nothing more frustrating than finding your favorite booths running out of food just after the sun goes down.

Hip-hop/R&B artist and internet phenomenon Azealia Banks performed one of the most energetic sets of the entire festival, including gloriously filthy viral sensation “212.”

Unfortunately for her, she only has about 15 minutes of material — one can count the number of songs she has released on one hand. She was forced to perform a cover of a Prodigy song and distract the crowd with a dance number in order to avoid calling attention to this fact — in the end, her set only lasted 20 minutes.