Having been to these three mega music festivals, Tomorrowland, Coachella, and EDC Vegas, I wanted to do a comparison from my own experience so that if you are deciding on which festival to go to (first), you can get an idea of what to expect from each one.
Please note that at the time of writing in Aug 2023, I’ve been to Tomorrowland and Coachella this year and EDC Vegas in 2015, so there may be a bit of recency bias and obviously a better memory of what happened at Tomorrowland and Coachella than at EDC.
The topics I will go through include: getting there and back, food, accommodations, music, venue, stage production, value, the crowd, fashion, art/partnerships, and just the overall vibe and atmosphere.
Read my EDC Vegas blog, Coachella blog, and Tomorrowland blog for more details about each of them. You can also check out other music festivals I’ve been to such as Fuji Rock and Wonderfruit.
Getting There and Back
With American music festivals like Coachella and Las Vegas, you mainly had to drive. The problem with driving is that the designated driver should be sober by the end of the night, limiting the “fun” he or she could have.
The biggest problem with driving was that you’ll get stuck in traffic for HOURS when you are close to the venue. The later you go to the festival, the worse the traffic becomes. On average, I think we spent about 2-3 hours driving to the festival for Coachella and EDC Vegas.
I had a terrible experience with Coachella where when we were queuing in the car lane to get in the parking lot, last minute they said the parking lot was full and we had to go to Indian Wells Tennis Court parking lot, which was much farther away. We drove with the traffic, parked our car, and had to take a shuttle bus to get to the venue. When the event ended, we waited an hour to get on the shuttle bus to bring us back to the parking lot where we then retrieved our car and drove away.
In my memory though, I remember staying at a hotel close to EDC Vegas, like maybe 15-20 mins away without traffic? But we still ended up driving at least 2 hours to get there. What’s bad about EDC Vegas is that the parking lots are so huge, it’s so hard to remember where you parked your car. So if you were staying on the Strip, man I can’t imagine how long that would have taken to go there! The problem arises in Coachella as well, but there were better guidance such as the displayed signs and color codes to help you remember.
With Tomorrowland, if you stay in Antwerp, you can take a train back and forth, with each way about an hour to an hour and a half. The train takes about 30 mins to get to Boom, and about a 30-40 min walk. Not the greatest, but definitely better than being stuck in traffic for hours, and there’s plenty of trains even after the event ends. If you stayed in Brussels, you have shuttle buses, where the walk is probably just like 25-30 mins away from the festival entrance. Worst case, you can always call a taxi or uber – it’s just a matter of how much you’re willing to pay.
Winner: Tomorrowland
A yummy grilled cheese sandwich
Food
I don’t remember eating much in EDC Vegas – we really lived by the mantra eat, sleep, rave, repeat. Not because we wanted to, but because we had to. Wake up, and it was one meal as our lunch + dinner at around 6pm, then just party the entire night mostly. If I had to guess, probably the food was meh otherwise I def would have remembered.
Tomorrowland was okay, the food choices were decent, the queue lines were short, and the taste was pretty good, but nothing memorable.
On the contrary, Coachella had a plethora of food options, from Asian to Greek to Italian to Burgers to poke bowls, there were so many cuisines to choose from! And not only that, pretty much all the food there were incredibly delicious! Like so delicious that I seriously think every single stall had a food quality check to ensure the taste of the quality of each stall before being served to the public. Also, their lemonade was seriously good, it was super tasty!
Winner: Coachella
Accommodations
By accommodations, obviously it depends on what you pick, but it’s more about the options that are there for you, their pricing, their location compared to the venue etc.
With EDC Vegas, we were lucky as one of the people we went with was working with the company that hosted EDC Vegas, Insomnia, so we stayed relatively close by. Like I can imagine you going to the strip in Vegas and going there, like the hotels would be very nice, but you really won’t have much time to enjoy the hotel and Vegas there, and it’s a looong journey to the venue.
With Coachella, we stayed mainly in Palm Springs. During Coachella, I guess the hotels jack up the prices, so it was pretty expensive, like USD 500 per night not including resort tax (I know I learned about it, it’s an American thing again). Palm Springs is quite close to Coachella, but it’s just the traffic when you’re around there that’s bad. I won’t imagine and won’t recommend people stay in Los Angeles to travel back and forth to Coachella each day.
With Tomorrowland, I think most people will try to stay at Antwerp or Brussels. Both of them have many affordable options and are quite convenient to get on the train / bus to go to Tomorrowland. And the hotels were quite affordable during that time, around USD 250-300 per night.
Winner: Tomorrowland
Music
I think this really just comes down to personal preference for each person. Like EDC Vegas and Tomorrowland will definitely have a focus on electronic music / dance music / EDM, covering mainstream EDM to 3 hour “underground” DJ sets, whereas Coachella will focus more on pop / hip hop / rock / a bit of dance music and so forth. So in terms of music diversity, Coachella will be better, and in terms of quality, it’s really up to the performers. All of them were really good with their lineups, so it really comes down to what music you want to listen to.
Winner: Tie
Venue
With Coachella and EDC Vegas, I felt like all the stages were sprawled across different areas in the venue, so you constantly had to look at the map to remember where each stage was. And, I have to say that there were stages in Coachella that were a little too “close” to each other so there was a bit of music leakage from one stage to another, even though the organizers probably did its best to minimize it. It’s not noticeable when you’re really close to the stage, but if you’re chilling along the sidelines you might be distracted.
For Tomorrowland, you can imagine it to be a two way street, and all the stages were just lined up along each street, so it was very easy to know where each stage was and how to get there. For me it was the main stage on one end, and Freedom stage on the other, and everything else in between. All the stages were spaced properly from one another.
Winner: Tomorrowland
Stage Production
I felt that the Coachella stage designs were a bit bland compared to EDC Vegas and Tomorrowland. Tomorrowland’s stage designs were out of this world… they were beautiful, meticulous, detailed, and extraordinary. If you look at my photos on this blog or Instagram, you can see the beauty in Tomorrowland’s set designs… most of the stages just bring you to a whole different world. With Coachella, you really were just experiencing a normal stage and waiting for the performer to do its thing. I think EDC Vegas was better when it came to stage design as well.
Winner: Tomorrowland
Value
So I checked the 2023 EDC Vegas ticket prices and they were about $400. Coachella was more expensive ($549) turns out Tomorrowland was the cheapest at €355.00. Considering all the food prices and who you get to see as well, I think the most bang for my buck was Coachella. Like, you get to see all these celebrities and superstars within the 3 days. Of course it might be pretty subjective since some of you might consider the DJs to be bigger superstars than the celebrities we see on the media, but overall I think going to Coachella to see all these celebrities perform their mini-concerts with is a very good deal. And Coachella had the better food.
Winner: Coachella, Tomorrowland a close second
The crowd
Not gonna lie, I did not have a single problem with any of the crowds in Coachella, Tomorrowland, and EDC Vegas. There was still a bit of “alpha broing” in Tomorrowland, but like lightly not aggressively. No one was really a dick or blocking anyone’s view or just being an ass, everyone kept to their spaces and to themselves most of the time. Everyone seemed pretty enthused with every performer and gave positive reactions.
Winner: Tie, slight lean towards Coachella
Fashion
Whereas Tomorrowland and EDC Vegas seem to have more women scantily dressed, I think overall the crowd at Coachella were dressed more conservatively and more “Coachella vibes”. If you’re going for the most exposed group, it’d definitely be EDC Vegas – many women there were literally wearing nothing except an underwear and make an “X” tape on their nipples. In Tomorrowland, some people wore costumes and stuff, and they definitely weren’t as out there as EDC Vegas, and I think in general people were pretty tame with their outfits and dressed in European style like simple and clean. But if you’re talking about fashion style, especially since it’s near Los Angeles, Coachella takes the cake.
Winner: Coachella
Art/partnerships
It seems like the music festivals in US have more art installations, whereas Tomorrowland’s have none. There were more artsy stuff scattered around the venue in both Coachella and EDC Vegas, and I think a bit more cool creative stuff in Coachella. Not so much in Tomorrowland, just partnerships with brands but they are very well hidden. Coachella positions their brand partnerships in a way that isn’t too aggressive.
Winner: Coachella
Overall vibe and atmosphere
This is very difficult since I loved all three of the music festivals, and each of them provided a different feel and atmosphere for what you’re going for. Obviously if you’re going to dance and enjoy the rhythm, you have to go to Tomorrowland or EDC Vegas. If you’re looking to chase your celebrity or enjoy the mood and vibes of the music, Coachella is the better option.
That being said, it should be obvious that there are more celebrities attending Coachella since 1) it’s closer to Los Angeles and 2) there are more celebrities performing in Coachella, attracting their celebrity friends to attend as well. Also, there is more space between people in Coachella, then EDC Vegas. I felt most squished in Tomorrowland (maybe because it’s also the event with the most attendees there as well).
In terms of the weather, Tomorrowland can be terrible. On the third day, it was super rainy and grey. Coachella had a very dry and hot weather during the afternoon, but it does get chilly at night where even I had to wear a hoodie.
EDC Vegas, if I remember correctly, did not feel too cold at night.
If anything, the feel of Coachella and EDC Vegas matched more closely than the atmosphere in Tomorrowland, and I think it’s due to both being in California. Like the traffic, the stages sprawling across the venue, the art installations here and there, like yeah sure EDC and Tomorrowland have the same music genre, but the structure of Coachella and EDC is actually more similar to each other.
Winner: Coachella
Final Words
If I had to pick the overall winner amongst the three festivals, it would have to be Coachella. And it’s not because I have a bias towards pop / hip hop (I also love all sorts of house and techno music) or celebrities, I just think the overall experience of Coachella felt the most “music festival” ish? I don’t know, and I did critique Coachella in my other blog post, but maybe because of the niche of the music of the other two venues and just the vibe, Coachella has a slight edge overall. I think Tomorrowland is a very very very close second; in fact if you asked me one week later I might even say you know what, Tomorrowland is my number one… like that’s how close they are with my preference. I hated Coachella’s traffic, and the stage production can have a massive improvement. If they fixed these two problems then Coachella would definitely take the crown, but even with EDC Vegas it is also incredible as well despite not winning any of the categories. And like I mentioned in the beginning, I might have had some recency bias, and my memory with EDC Vegas might be more hazy, and there may have been massive improvements to EDC Vegas since 8 years ago. But to re-emphasize, you can’t go wrong with any of these 3. Like out of 10, every festival on this list is at least a 9 and above. At the end of the day, I think the biggest factor is what music you’re going for, then the location and price of the festival.
