I went to Coachella five times. It's both the best time you'll ever have, and the worst. Book your hotel rooms now if you haven't already, because every hotel, motel, and chicken coop in Indio and the surrounding areas will be completely booked months in advance of the event. One year we had to stay all the way out at the Morongo Casino, which was great but it was a long ass drive and a major pain to deal with at midnight or 1am when you're dead tired from being in the sun all day.
Speaking of the sun, it can get brutally hot in the Southern California desert during the summer. Some years it got up to 115 degrees. Bring sunscreen and stay hydrated. Make sure you have enough funds to cover all of the food and drinks you're going to need, because those days are long, food & drink is expensive, and there is no possible way you'll be able to leave the Polo Field once you're at the event. There are just too many people and cars and everything is too far away. Bring a canteen or a camelbak so you can refill it with water - bottled water is $2 which sounds alright, but if it's hot - and I promise you it will be - you're going to be going through a lot of water, and those little 16oz bottles won't last you long. You don't want to have to make too many trips back and forth to the refill stations especially if you've staked out a good spot for an upcoming show.
As far as hydration - I know this may sound like common sense, but do not underestimate the desert heat and what it can do you to. Every year an ambulance shows up about once a day to take someone to the hospital, usually for heat exhaustion and/or dehydration. Try to keep the alcohol consumption to a minimum while you're at the show - save it for afterwards. Not only is it expensive, but alcohol will dehydrate you even further and you're going to be struggling to drink enough water as it is.
I strongly encourage you to join the Coachella message boards and talk to people in the months leading up to your trip, there are a lot of helpful people over there and you can also join some meetups for travelers and things like that. Bring in extra sunscreen, lip balm, ear plugs, stuff like that. You're going to need it and there are always people around you that forgot theirs, too. You can get a big case of disposable Ear Plugs in plastic wrappers for so cheap, just stuff a bunch in your pockets and take them into the show with you. I promise you that there are always going to be people standing next to you with their fingers in their ears or covering them up with something due to the volume, it's a great way to break the ice and meet people and it will be well appreciated while costing you very little.
Hm what else...there's a lot. I strongly encourage you and your friends to designate an easy to find central meeting location in the event you get split up. This used to be more of a problem in past years than recently, but cell service can be spotty since there are so many people and everyone is streaming video or audio, texting, calling, and the like. At one point one year I wasn't getting texts until two hours after they were sent, so it will help to have a backup plan that doesn't involve cell phones in the event that service isn't available.
Happy to answer questions about Coachella and California in general if you have them. It really is a great time, just make sure you're prepared and all will be fine!
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