If you follow me on social media, you know that I’m headed to the Coachella Music Festival for the first time this year. After years of FOMO from seeing my friends post about it, it’s finally my turn! To prepare, I’ve been running around asking all the seasoned attendees what tips they had for me and for all of you who might be attending for your first time.

5 Tips for Preparing for Coachella

1. Find a hat (or two)

Coachella is in the desert which means major sun exposure between 10 AM and 3 PM. You’ll want a hat to shield the sun. I’ve already pulled 2 hats that I’m loving for the festival. You can find the one I’m wearing from Mint Julep here. I love that it has a wide brim and has a little pom pom detail.

Other styles I’m loving right now:

Pro Tip: With all the people and crowds, you may lose your hat. That realization helped me set a cap of the $25 range for my hats.

2. Break in your shoes

I got a lot of opinions on what the “perfect festival shoe” is. Some people said the classic running shoe, others said something with a platform. But the general consensus from everyone was to break them in. You’ll be walking around a lot and standing for hours. There’s no pain like shoe pain.

I’m planning to bring an extra pair of shoes to leave in the locker, but my goal is to be comfortable in my platforms. A shoe with a platform is ideal if you’re on the shorter side like yours truly.

Other shoe pro tips:

avoid open toe shoes at all costs. There’s also no pain like someone stepping on your open toes.
leave the white/ pastel shoes at home. By the end of the day, your shoes will be a whole new color. Think “desert sand grunge.”

3. Get your electronics ready

I was so bummed when I discovered we couldn’t bring DSLRs into the festival. I think that’s an industry standard, but double check the rules on the concert page to make sure. But then I realized that I didn’t exactly want to carry around a heavy camera all day.

More electronics pro tips:

bring a portable charger. There will be charging stations, but they’re extra slow. If you MUST use a charging station, charge in airplane mode
you likely won’t have cell service. Service is spotty at best. Don’t waste your time trying to Snapstory and Instastory. Save your battery by taking all your videos and pictures in the normal camera app, and uploading them later.
buy a camera phone lens. This tip is only relevant if you’re like me and don’t have a new and fancy iphone with the upgraded camera. Amazon has some great lenses you can stick to your phone that will look professional-ish. Just make sure you’re getting a “portrait” lens and not “fish eye” lens.

4. Make a scarf part of your daily look

Being in the desert, the location is susceptible to dust storms. Always have some sort of mask or scarf to cover your nose and mouth with. You can actually find “festival masks” but I’m planning to use a silk scarf or something similar.

5. Get that jacket ready (It gets cold at night)

Even though you might arrive to the concert and it’s 90 degrees, once night hits it’ll drop a good 30-35 degrees. You want to make sure you come prepared. Which gets us back to the locker conversation. Everyone recommended renting a locker as a big group and leaving your jackets, extra shoes, etc. So all I can say is dress accordingly!