Are you thinking of attending Desert Trip Weekend Two? Did you buy a pass for the Safari Village? There isn’t a lot of available information on how the event will be organized or what to expect in the Safari Village. Even if you have been to Coachella before this experience is organized differently, so here are some tips for navigating the Safari Village experience during “Oldchella”.

1. Do not fly into LAX. Los Angeles is 2.5 hours away from Indio, but with construction and the never ending traffic the drive could take you over 5 hours. It is well worth the extra expense to fly into Palm Springs (PSP), or Ontario (ONT). If you already have a ticket to LAX, consider changing your flight to save what could be a 5+ hour drive to the festival.
2. Arrive Thursday night. Your lodging on Thursday night is included so travel ahead, get set up and rest a little before the hustle of the Friday night shows. It’s worth it not to be rushed getting to the festival on Friday before the shows start.
3. You will pick up your wristbands at the Renaissance Indian Wells Resort and Spa. It is hard to find your way to the exact entrance for the Safari Village, so even though waiting for the escort is frustrating, it is worth it to be taken to the right place, especially late at night.
4. If you are driving, make note of the grocery stores and pharmacies along the way. If you arrive on Thursday night, you will have time early Friday morning to make a trip to the store to stock up on items you can keep in your mini fridge. After Friday morning I would not recommend driving in and out of the festival because once everyone arrives it will be much crazier. If you are not driving and are instead taking the shuttle, the concierge offers a grocery service you can use to obtain wine, and snacks, and other necessities for your room. The service takes 5 hours, though, so order early in the day.
5. There are about 100 tents and 10 yurts for a maximum of 220 guests in the Safari Village. Get to know your neighbors and the folks working at the concierge desk. You have 4 days to develop a community and you won’t regret it. There are two shower points and 2 bathroom points located on each side of the camp. This seemed to be more than enough. If you require a bathrobe for traveling back and forth, bring one from home as these are not provided. Hair dryers are also not provided.
6. Sign up early for your free massage! They go fast. Each one is 30 minutes and Jared is the best. TIP: While most of the staff does not expect tips (i.e. concierge, shuttle, golf cart, the massage therapists should be tipped).
7. It is HOT during the day. Sometimes the power goes out in your expensive Safari Tent. It it does, throw out any food you had stored in there. It could (and probably will) spoil in just a few hours. Not worth the risk!
8. It is HOT! Bring an extra fan, or two, or whatever you can to cool down your sleep space. One trick we used was to get a bucket of ice from the concierge and some bandanas (which they also provide) and iced them down to wear during the day. This helps if you need a mid day nap.
9. Bring ear plugs, a sleep mask, and shower shoes. They do not provide these. They do provide sunscreen, bath towels (which you can switch out from day to day or as often as needed), bottled water and other cold drinks all day and night.
10. The shower is very underwhelming. It is not unlike a shower in a field hospital in Afghanistan. Bring shower shoes and an open mind.
11. It cools down a lot at night, so if you get cold when you sleep, you should pack an extra blanket. They say they provide them, but by the time I needed them all they had were duvet covers.
12. Buy hangers! They have no place to hang your clothes and if you don’t want them to wrinkle in your suitcase, pack some hangers and a de-wrinkler like Downy. You can hang them around your tent easily.
13. It is very dry and dusty. Bring a bandana for walking around during the day and pack some nasal spray and allergy medicine, even a sinus rinse if you can. The things that will come out of your nose after even one day at the festival are indescribable. It is also a good idea to pack immodium, an anti nausea medication, and pepto bismol in case you have stomach issues. The portable bathrooms on site are not the best place to be sick.
14. The hospitality tent is always cool and always open, but the bar is not open all day and they only offer food in the morning and late at night, so make sure you have snacks and your own supply of drinks or you will have to go early into the festival and spend a lot more on concessions.
15. Getting to the festival: TAKE THE GOLF CART. Sure you can walk, but the route is circuitous and very dusty. Taking the golf cart won’t make you lazy, just efficient. The golf carts are plentiful and there is also a tram so there are more than enough ways to get there. Getting back takes a little longer, because it’s a mass exodus after the show, but the lines are not that long. If you don’t want to wait for a golf cart, leave before the encore and getting out will be a breeze.
16. When you enter the festival you will go through the VIP entrance. It is fast and the lines are never long. There is a metal detector and they also search your belongings. They will not search your person, however and you do not have to remove your shoes or anything crazy like that.
17. After you get through security you will be in a large concession area on the right of the stage. Believe it or not THIS IS THE PLATINUM LOUNGE. It is HUGE, often very crowded and really high priced. I could not believe this was the special VIP lounge we were all promised. Between sets the lines for food and drinks were over an hour long. The concession plaza on the left of the stage is also supposed to a Platinum Lounge, but while we were there we learned they also opened it to GA so the lines were even longer and even more ridiculous. TIP: Go early and get drinks before the show or leave a few songs before each artist ends to use the bathroom or get a drink. Otherwise the lines for both are outrageous.
18. Within the left side Platinum Lounge is the entry to the Diamond Lounge (just look for the signs), the special VIP lounge for Safari Village guests. When you can get in, the lines are much shorter and the scene much more civilized. They DO NOT sell food in this lounge, however, so you are reduced to finding something in one of the two Platinum lounges and possibly waiting over an hour. On Night Two the entry to the Diamond Lounge in between sets was bottlenecked and nearly impossible to access. The same thing happened with the bathrooms. They reduced the entry/exit width for some reason and the traffic in and out bottlenecked and took forever. Hopefully they work this out before next weekend. TIP: If you need to use the bathroom or want to buy a drink between sets, it is best to leave before the set is over or you will find yourself in a very long line.
19. Merchandise: There are some merch stands within the Platinum Lounges, however, the best merch tent is within the general festival grounds. That means if you have a floor, pit, or grandstand seat and enter through the VIP area, you will have to leave this area to go into the general population, which is very crowded! The grounds open at 2 PM each day so it is possible to go to the grounds, check out the scene, the photo exhibition, buy some merch, have some food, and then go back to the Safari Village (or hotel), shower, change, and head back. Most shows begin around 6:30 and you will only need about 30 minutes to get to your seat unless you stop for drinks first. Then you should give yourself an hour. TIP: They sell the majority of the band merch on the night they play, so for example, if you want a Rolling Stones t-shirt don’t wait until Sunday, buy it before the show on Friday night.
20. If for any reason you are feeling unwell or simply crowd averse, you can watch the show through the live streaming in the hospitality tent in the Safari Village.

 

 

Bob Dylan Set List

Rainy Day Women, Don’t Think Twice it’s All Right, Highway 61 Revisited, It’s All Over Now Baby Blue, High Water, Simple Twist of Fate, Early Roman Kings, Love Sick, Tangled Up in Blue, Lonesome Day Blues, Make You Feel My Love, Pay in Blood, Desolation Row, Soon after Midnight, Ballad of a Thin Man, (Encore): Masters of War.

Rolling Stones Set List

Start Me Up, You Got Me Rocking, Ride Em On Down, Mixed Emotions, Wild Horses, It’s Only Rock n Roll, Come Together, Tumbling Dice, Honky Tonk Women, Slipping Away (Keith), Little T&A (Keith), Midnight Rambler, Miss You, Gimme Shelter, Sympathy for the Devil, Brown Sugar, Jumping Jack Flash, (Encore): You Can’t Always Get What you Want, Satisfaction.

Neil Young Set List

After the Gold Rush, Heart of Gold, Comes a Time, Mother Earth Natural Anthem, Out on the Weekend, Human Highway, Neighborhood, Show Me, Harvest Moon, Words Between the Lines of Age, Walk On, Texas Rangers, Powderfinger, Down by the River, Seed Justice, Peace Trail, Welfare Mothers, Rocking in the Free World.

Paul McCartney Set List

A Hard Day’s Night, Jet, Can’t Buy Me Love, Letting Go, Day Tripper, Let Me Roll It, I’ve Got a Feeling, My Valentine, Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five, Maybe I’m Amazed, We Can Work it Out, In Spite of All the Danger, I’ve Just Seen a Face, Love Me Do, And I Love Her, Blackbird, Here Today, Queenie Eye, Lady Madonna, FourFiveSeconds, Eleanor Rigby, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, A Day in the Life/Give Peace a Chance” (with Neil Young)
Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” (with Neil Young), Something, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Band on the Run, Back in the U.S.S.R., Let It Be, Live and Let Die, Hey Jude,

(Encore): I Wanna Be Your Man, Helter Skelter, Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End.