Coachella Launches EDM-Focused ‘Quasar’ Stage

Photo Credit: Coachella

Ahead of Coachella’s return to the desert next month, festival organizers have revealed their latest invention: the Quasar stage, the festival’s first EDM-specific set in more than a decade.Along with unveiling the Quasar stage, several artists have been announced for the new stage’s inaugural lineup, which finds DJs playing three-plus hour sets, including Diplo, Mau P, Honey Dijon, Green Velvet, Jamie xx, Floating Points, Daphni, Eric Prydz, and Anyma. Solo sets from Michel Bibi and Rüfüs Du Sol are also in the works.

“We’re super excited to introduce Quasar to Coachella. It’s going to be a stage where we can book talent on it in a way that we haven’t felt like we’ve been able to in the past. We’re looking at it as a traditional kind of DJ stage,” said Jennifer Yocoubian, Coachella producer Goldenvoice’s VP of Booking and Strategy. “The thinking was that we wanted people to see a longer format DJ set.”

Designed by longtime Coachella stage designer Vita Modus, Quasar’s assembly will include two massive LED walls on either side, with artists in the middle. The Quasar stage — which Coachella notes in its Instagram announcement is “not a tent, and therefore not a desert” — also features two mirrors on the sides, which reflect the desert’s idyllic landscape back for the audience.DJs have long spent countless hours playing on their decks throughout dance and rave shows — and Coachella’s tent-based pop-up stages don’t impart the intricacy of the tools of the DJ trade. The Quasar stage is a natural fit for the festival.

It’s the first new stage dedicated to dance music to debut at Coachella since 2013’s Yuma, which was initially designed to showcase more “underground” dance music and has grown significantly over the past decade. Quasar will occupy the space on the festival site that formerly housed the Sahara tent, which will be relocated.