"The way we do things around here is we like to go bigger, otherwise it's not fun for us," said Jesse Flemming of the Los Angeles-based artist collective the Do Lab, which installs the huge-scale, widely recognizable installations on the Empire Polo Field grounds for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. But despite his preference, Flemming and the Do Lab are currently working with a budget roughly 75 percent the size of what they had for last year's festival, which is produced by Goldenvoice. They're beginning to load in right about now for the concert series, which runs April 17 through 19.
To conserve dollars, the Do Lab is reusing the basic framework from the structures it built for last year's festival. "Most people won't even notice it's the same structure—most people won't recognize them. We're changing the colors all around [and making other structural changes], so they're pretty much new," Flemming said, adding that the Do Lab team "uses a massive amount of volunteers and calls in a lot of favors," which they're willing to do in return for the exposure the festival affords.
This year's structures will cover more than an acre of real estate on the festival grounds—a slightly larger space than last year—and will incorporate earth tones, both because the artists favor those shades, and because it's a challenge to find a wide selection of fabrics in the weather-resistant type they require. Dark browns, olive greens, reds, oranges, and golds will round out the look.
One of the stages housed within the installation will have a raw look made from obliquely placed wooden palettes. "It's going to look like maybe a tornado blew through a massive stack of palettes and flipped them all up in the air and they're all just stuck there," Flemming said. The inexpensive material choice works well on a limited budget and will allow the team to "do something pretty drastic and make an impression."
The Do Lab has worked on projects at Coachella for five years. So where does the group find its inspiration? "It's not easy—it can be kind of nerve-racking because we have to figure out what are people going to like? What are we going to like?" Flemming said. "We like anything that's all natural and earthy. We look at a lot of architecture and design books. We like to travel. We relax and go to jungles and things like that."
