The Coachella festival had no problem selling out two weekends, and with a surprise appearance from Kanye West, weekend two didn’t lack for headlines, either. Yet the total volume of tweets pertaining to Coachella nose-dived from the festival’s first weekend to its second — down from 3.5 million festival-specific tweets sent during weekend one to only 600,000 sent over weekend two, an 83 percent drop.
The decline in online activity between weekends one and two is expected, according to Shira Lazar, host and executive producer of What’s Trending. “Usually the first weekend is the big news weekend, it’s when a lot of bigger stars show up,” she says, noting that most celebrities contribute to the hype with their own social output.
Weekend-one is also heavy with off-site parties sponsored by major brands like H&M and Refinery29 who dole out heavily choreographed social media campaigns complete with star endorsements. The so-called #nochella scene also seems to like to bask in its outlier status, spurring its own trending topics all weekend long.
Still, some 60,000 convened nightly on April 17, 18 and 19, where was their enthusiasm? Left out on the field, says Lazar. “Coachella’s second weekend may offer people offline something new, but it gives nothing new to people online. It’s like the premiere of something versus the second episode.” Or an east coast versus west coast airing.
Furthermore, weekend one was live-streamed while weekend two wasn’t (TV network AXS did air select sets, however), so the crowd at home on their couches tweeting during weekend one was ostensibly absent during weekend two. This definitely played a massive role, Lazar says. From the artists themselves to fans watching in real time on-site and online, she said, “live streams are a huge part of the social activation.”
So what were the most-tweeted moments and performances? Both Drake and David Guetta’s Nicki Minaj cameos, where she appeared but didn’t actually sing any songs, followed by Kanye West performing a mini-set during The Weeknd’s second Saturday performance. Next is AC/DC, followed by DMX joining DJ Snake on stage.
The most mentioned artists from Coachella’s second weekend were Kanye West, followed by The Weeknd, Drake, Marina and the Diamonds and Tyler, The Creator. Among emerging artists, the most-mentioned include FKA Twigs, Ryn Weaver, Alison Wonderland, Ryan Hemsworth and Kygo.
Coachella thusly wraps up with the Most-tweeted about moments & performances from both weekends as follows:
1. Drake brings out Nicki Minaj
2. David Guetta brings out Nicki Minaj
3. Kanye performs with The Weeknd
4. AC/DC performance
5. DMX joins DJ Snake on stage
