Storm cuts short Head Trip opening and Apple Music's first festival livestream
Lightning and the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel cut short the opening night of Head Trip on Oct. 10. The weather stopped both the live show in Indio, California, and Apple Music's free livestream of the event. It was an abrupt start to a weekend planned as a one-off.
Head Trip was a one-time-only dance music festival staged on the Coachella grounds. It was produced by Goldenvoice and set to gather a 90,000-strong crowd, Billboard reported. The event ran across Oct. 10 and 11.
Apple Music carried the festival live and free. The plan was to stream sets from the main stage on both days, according to Music Ally. Viewers were invited to tune in live from Indio through a dedicated Head Trip curator page on the platform.
That made Head Trip the first full festival video livestream in Apple Music's history in any genre. The broadcast sat within Club Live, the platform's live series for dance music. Club Live launched in May with a broadcast from EDC Las Vegas.
Apple also supported the weekend with a Head Trip Indio app. The App Store listing offered tools to explore the line-up, discover curated playlists and plan the on-site experience. For viewers new to the format, the idea was straightforward. Open the stream and watch the main stage as it happened.
The early finish on Saturday reshaped the programme. Calvin Harris, booked as the Saturday night headliner, was unable to perform that night. He joined the Sunday bill instead.
The Oct. 11 line-up featured DJ Harvey, Peggy Gou and Kettama b2b Dom Dolla, a back-to-back set in which two DJs perform together. Skrillex and Swedish House Mafia also played. Harris closed out the revised Sunday schedule.
The production was built for scale. The stage was designed by Romain Pissenem and his company High Scream, which works on large electronic music stagings.
What makes this stand out for fans is access. A 90,000-person festival that will not be repeated was briefly open to anyone with the app. The storm narrowed that window. Sunday's full run gave the experiment its second half.
