Coachella 2022: What you need to know about Weekend 2

The first weekend of the 2022 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is officially in the books. After two years of cancellations, the California-based super festival returned to the Empire Polo Club grounds, and with it came dazzling performances and thousands of concertgoers. Despite a notable uptick in the area’s COVID-19 cases following last weekend’s shows, according to Desert Sun, round two is on deck with no signs of slowing down.

Here are the most important things you need to know about this weekend’s upcoming festivities.

When is it, and is it too late to buy tickets?

Coachella’s closing shows are from April 22 to 24 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif. Although tickets sold out within minutes, it’s not too late to purchase a Weekend 2 pass. Prices range from $500 to $700 depending on the re-seller. Also, there is an official waitlist and ticket exchange on the Coachella website.

Who is performing?

The official schedule with set times has yet to be posted, but many of the performers from last week will return. Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and the Weeknd paired with Swedish House Mafia are headliners for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

Lil Baby, Doja Cat, Maggie Rogers and Louis the Child are a few other significant performers.

Coachella will also live-stream for free on YouTube starting on Friday at 4 p.m.

What’s different from Weekend 1?

There are a handful of noteworthy moments to look out for in the outdoor festival’s second weekend. On Saturday, the multiplatinum girl group aespa will reportedly join 88rising on the main stage. Thanks to the label that primarily features Asian acts, the K-pop group will make their U.S. debut, according to Billboard. Also, prominent boyband Brockhampton is reportedly playing their final show as a group on Saturday. The hip-hop collective announced their “indefinite hiatus” in a tweet earlier this year.

What about COVID-19?

Coachella’s COVID-19 health and safety policies for its return were surprisingly lax. The outdoor fest did not require proof of vaccination, masks or social distancing. That being said, several cities in and around the festival grounds reported a sharp rise in new cases following Weekend 1 — the area saw a 77% increase from the previous week, according to Desert Sun.

Who were the standouts from Weekend 1?

Harry Styles treated festivalgoers to new songs from his forthcoming album and brought out special guest Shania Twain during his headlining set this past Friday.

“The 28-year-old English heartthrob opened the show with ‘As It Was,’ the very a-ha-ish lead single from his upcoming album that recently set a record for the most streams in one day on Spotify,” Mikael Wood, the pop music critic for The Times, said in the weekend’s live blog. “Later he did two unreleased cuts from ‘Harry’s House,’ which is due out next month: ‘Boyfriends,’ an acoustic ballad with lush Laurel Canyon-ish vocal harmonies, and ‘Late Night Talking,’ which had a kind of crisp ’80s pop-funk vibe.”

Megan Thee Stallion surprised fans during her set Saturday on the main stage with an unreleased song, in which she laid down a series of ruthless bars over a bouncy sample from Jodeci and Wu-Tang Clan’s “Freek’n You.”

“Calling all hotties: Megan Thee Stallion set the main stage aflame (figuratively) with a rapid-fire blitz of her greatest hits,” Suzy Exposito, a music reporter for The Times, said. “Poised like a deadly fembot in a chrome bodysuit, the ‘Savage’ MC got the crowd jiggling along to ‘Body’ and conjured the devil-may-care spirit of a much-missed Cardi B for their controversy-courting ‘WAP.'”