Special: Coachella Music Festival 2012, What's Changed About Live Music

This year California's gigantic Music Festival is multiplying. Coachella is an orgy of all things music, sun, youth and fun. 

For three plus days thousands of people swarm to see dozens of the world's most renown musicians, and to let loose in the name of having a good time. This year it's not just one weekend but too weekends. Are we about to overload or is Coachella getting flushed down the mainstream.

Let's put the apocalyptic predictions aside for a moment; having two weekends of Coachella just makes sense. The festival sells out every year, leaving thousands of people in the lurch. They began selling layaway tickets in late 2011, and when the tickets finally went on sale early this year they sold out again in a matter of days. It begs the question what's so damn great about Coachella.

Festivals offer more than a concert. They are the "super store" of live music performances. That sounds incredibly dull, but it captures the basic points. Coachella is a great value. For around $400 bucks you get to see acts that individually would probably total thousands of dollars; all in one place and in one chunk of time. At music festivals you can see more music than even some of the most avid live music lovers see in months or even a year.

People want more live music, they've always wanted more. The only thing that's changing is we're just finding out how to get it to them. The trick in every industry for the past hundred years, has been how to take what is normally done a small scale and make it massive. Take Woodstock for example, that was live music's first venture into the massive and it was a massive disaster and a massive success. Coachella is perfecting the formula.

It's all about setting up a safe environment, with heavy restrictions, signing up big and new acts, and letting the kids go crazy.

See you at Coachella!