Festival Go-ers Impact Local Businesses

With festival go-ers swarming the valley, local businesses are feeling the impacts of all the tourists both positively and negatively. People from across the globe are making their way towards the Coachella Music and Arts Festival, coming into town just a day before the festival starts. "We always drive up on day zero. We always meet up here, get our last minute stuff and then drive in together and let the party begin." one festival-goer from San Diego says. All excited to see a collection of well known and upcoming performers headed to the big stage. With the festival-goers swarming the town, local businesses like Everbloom Coffee see a lot of traction. "Absolutely, yeah, we’re seeing vendors come in from out of town. We’re seeing people who are working the festival, people who are attending the festival. They’re all passing through already." says Co-owner of Everbloom Coffee, Matthew Ortega. With the coffee and tea shop being a fan-favorite amongst locals and expecting to almost triple their normal capacity, they just announced that they’ll be selling some of their items inside this year’s festival. "That’s gonna be basically what you get here at Everbloom in our brick and mortar, the same experience, but they’re at the festival." Unfortunately, not everyone sees business like this during festival season, just a little ways away in old-town La Quinta, one tea shop has experienced quite the opposite. "We saw about four people today. A couple people yesterday so there’s, you know, a light, like few here and there." says one of the owners of Cali Rosina, Jodie Smith. Same goes for their business last year. "Last year, we prepared for extra and we didn’t get hit like we expected to. So yeah, it was just really surprising." Regardless, with more people coming out to the desert, Smith says she hopes this year is different. "We don’t know what to expect, there might be a little bit more from last year. You know, because the word has gotten out a little bit here and there. So we’ll see. I mean, we can only see after this first weekend. So we’re as prepared as we can be." Smith says. All the businesses I talked to were preparing their shops regardless of last-years situation, expecting the unknown with the large influx of people headed this way.