Coachella 2026 opens Friday, April 10, in Indio, California, as Weekend One begins with Sabrina Carpenter headlining the main stage Friday night, Justin Bieber Saturday, and Karol G — the first Latin woman to headline the festival — on Sunday. [1]

Jack White was added as a surprise Wednesday afternoon in a Mojave tent slot at 3 PM Sunday, the announcement coming via the festival's social channels within hours of the Islamabad talks being confirmed for Friday. The festival's curatorial team did not comment on the timing. [2]

The Euphoria Season 3 premiere will be screened at 11:59 PM Sunday at the Coachella campgrounds, timed to the simultaneous HBO Max premiere on April 12. The screening is ticketed separately from general festival admission. Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and Jacob Elordi are all expected at the campgrounds premiere. [3]

Set times have been posted. The full first weekend includes Blood Orange, Foster the People, the xx, and a lineup depth that festival attendees describe as the strongest since the 2019 Beyoncé-to-Ariana-Grande succession. Karol G's headlining slot represents a milestone — the first Colombian artist and the first reggaeton act to close out the main stage at Coachella. [4]

The festival exists, as it does every year, in a relationship to the news cycle that is simultaneously in it and apart from it. The ceasefire announcement Tuesday — oil at $93, Iran and the US talking again — removed the most immediate anxiety from the travel calculus for the roughly 250,000 people attending across two weekends. Whether they're celebrating, escaping, or simply continuing with plans made six months ago, they arrive in the desert at a moment when the world has, for a few days, decided to stop threatening to end.

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles