It’s not a dream, it’s not a mirage, the official Coachella website cryptically announced of Quasar, its not-a-dream, not-a-mirage newest stage shortly before the 2024 festival opened.
So what exactly is it? Well, let’s try to explain.
At the entrance to the festival, not far from the iconic Ferris wheel, there are two towering walls, their inner sides cut at an angle over what looks reminiscent of a pyramid. If the apes in “2001: A Space Odyssey” had stumbled on this in the desert they’d have definitely worshipped it over that dumb monolith they thought so much of.
Though in the daytime, it’s not that much. Fans flowing to and from the new Sahara Tent, which moved this year from the spot where Quasar now towers, pass the giant LED screen walls with little notice.
Come nightfall, though, Quasar, a term scientists came up with for “quasi-stellar objects,” lives up to its name. As big-name electronic music DJ-producers such as Honey Dijon, Jamie XX, Eric Prydz, and Diplo play extended three-hour sets, the gravitational pull of the screens and the music draw crowds in like moths dancing to pulsing beats and rhythms emanating from the ever-shifting glow of the massive screens.
Aditya Dev and Neely Atamaniuk, both of Long Beach, stood on the broad field in front of Quasar, taking in its sights and sounds as the golden hour before dusk arrived on Saturday.
“It’s super cool,” Dev said.
“I do like how there’s a lot more open space,” Atamaniuk added.
Both things are true. The visuals on the screens use imagery of the desert that surrounds the festival grounds as the backdrop for shape-shifting imagery. A night earlier, as DJ Green Velvet played an EDM remix of the late Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” the screens portrayed desert palm trees at night over which shifting geometric shapes seemed to break the two-dimensional plane of the screens to become solid objects.
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Inside the pyramid-shaped stage, and on small stages at the foot of the screens, fans danced to the music, while sprawling across the field a few thousand more danced nonstop.
“It’s similar to the modern trend (in dance music) where you have a lot of fans on stage and the DJs play long sets,” Dev said.
“I feel like this is the most beautiful space,” Atamaniuk said.
“It’s like a mirror of the festival and the desert,” Dev added, gazing onto the screen that at the moment portrayed the craggy low mountains that embrace the festival grounds.