Coachella's second weekend featured a massive drop off in social media mentions, despite being an easy sell-out, like the first weekend. Billboard reports that while 3.5 million tweets mentioned Coachella directly during the event's first rendition the previous weekend (with Nicki Minaj and AC/DC driving traffic), only 600,000 mentions went out over the past weekend. What's the story?
The site contacted Shira Lazar of What's Trending to get some insight.
"Usually the first weekend is the big news weekend, it's when a lot of bigger stars show up," she said. "Coachella's second weekend may offer people offline something new, but it gives nothing new to people online. It's like the premiere of something versus the second episode."
That's fair enough...but weekend two wasn't exactly lacking in star power. The lineup was near identical after all, and Kanye West made an appearance with The Weeknd. If that doesn't get Twitter going, what does?
Turns out some other factors come into play as well. The major dissuader of tweets was the fact that many of weekend one's sets were live-streamed online, while weekend two wasn't. A majority of the tweets that dealt with Coachella during the first weekend were actually coming from those watching at home and not those in attendance—the latter party was smart enough to enjoy the live opportunity instead of looking at their phones. No home audience during weekend two meant no tweets either.
Many are also familiar with the corporate interests that use Coachella as a branding opportunity. Companies such as H&M throw "Coachella parties" to coincide with the event, however most of these occur during weekend one. Again, no parties equal fewer tweets. The sponsors themselves were also sources for a high number of the tweets.
So what did grab attention, over both weekends? Minaj for one. She made appearances at the sets of both Drake and David Guetta, which were the no. 1 and 2 most-tweeted moments, respectively. Kanye's appearance ranks at no. 3, while AC/DC's first weekend performance comes in at no. 4. Don't be surprised about the latter: AC/DC was among the most-tweeted about acts when the lineup was released as well. Finally, another guest star at no. 5: DMX's appearance with DJ Snake took the cake.
