This year, the number of vendors selling wares was reduced to just the Virgin music store and general store, leaving an even more open field for massive interactive art installations. So when the 60,000 festival goers walk across the fields from stage to stage, there’s more to Coachella than just the music. As a matter of fact, many people now come also to interact with the art installations, or dance in the Do LaB or with the Dossier Vaudeville Cirque. Having giant “misting petals” to crawl under to escape the heat during the day, or opting to dance in a misting oasis while vaudeville performers shoot off cannons of water and DJ’s play in a giant acorn, is a pretty interesting experience.

There are 3 distinct timeframes during the Coachella Arts Festival where giant installations are most appreciated and come to life including daytime, sunset, and night. For example, while the 25-foot two-headed dragon may not seem all that impressive in the day, at night the 12,000 points of light make the animal appear very real. Just as the benign field of sunflowers which capture the solar energy during the day turn into a field of light when you put your hand in the center at night creating a shocking display of colors from the petals and stems created from your kinetic energy. Meanwhile, the Do LaB located in the middle of the fields with its giant brown acorn pods and green leaf organically made misting petals cross easily from day to night with featured DJ’s for outdoors dancing under the misting oasis and a performance by the Dossier Vaudeville Cirque, then transforms into a night-time scene for ravers when the red balls on top of the brown acorns light up during the night.

Other Art Installation Highlights Included:

• A giant 40-foot spider of metal called I.T. that pulls people up into it’s rotating head created by artist Michael Christian
• 14-foot metal pipe organ tree called Babel that rotates when you spin it—somewhat like the Womping Willow Tree in Harry Potter
• The Lightening sculpture made of massive Tesla coils that shoots purple bolts of lightening called the Cauac Twins (because this year there were two) designed by Syd Klinge
• Field of Sunflowers by Stefano Corazza that collect solar energy in the day and light up when you touch them at night
• Manic, the light and sound organ that lights up when you touch it and creates various organ sounds, so when you have, say, 10 people all touching different balls of light, it creates an odd symphony and multi-colored show
• The Fire Pod steel sculpture with 6 claws that shoots 12 points of fire that merge, synchronized with music
• Perpetual Art Machine where viewers can chose bits and piece of more than 1000 videos from keying in keywords which bring up a collage of videos from 600 artists for an interactive video experience
• The Cubatron made of 6,720 lights in cylindrical, 40-foot diameter that captures energy during the day, and become a multi-colored light show at night
• The Terrasphere where you can change-up the light show ranging from jumping dolphins to a rising sun in neon animation using various levers
• The Dome where you could duck in to check out latest DJ sets, dance, or at night, experience the electro-luminescent neon animations on its panels
• The Kinetic Steam Engine that collects steam and creates bolts of fire that shoot in the air
• The Megamite Army that cruises around the festival grounds wearing megamite outfits made of balloons created by Jason Hackenwerth
• Giant rocking horses made out of recycled iron and tires that greeted festival-goers at the Coachella entrance
• Flying sculpture ball that flies in the air when you get near the spinning orb