Power Trip 2023: Another Festival, Another Hot, Daunting, Long Line for Shirts and Souvenirs

During Coachella, I wrote a story about the merchandise experience—where people often had to wait for hours on end, during the hottest parts of the day, just to buy a T-shirt.

Heading into Power Trip, Coachella veterans hoped the merch-buying experience would be improved—but that, unfortunately, was not the case.

Gates opened to the festival daily at 4 p.m., and the first band of the night was set to begin at 6:45 p.m.—meaning that attendees had, at most, 2 hours and 45 minutes to explore and buy merch without missing the show. Some people were cutting it close.

“We went from a line to a line to a line,” said an attendee named Matthew. He and his group were there before the gates opened, and they went straight to the merch line upon entry. They waited for about 2 1/2 hours—but Matthew said it was worth it.

“All we got was Power Trip stuff,” Matthew said. “I wish they’d have more (rock events) like this out here. Especially for us—we love all that rock shit, and we always have to travel to San Bernardino to go see these bands.”

Due to poor organization on Friday, a number of lines formed, and while some people waited for hours, others who lucked out and wound up in shorter lines waited for less than an hour.

“We waited for about 30 to 45 minutes. Everything went really well in there.” said Brody Hall.

Whether the wait was a half-hour or two-plus hours, the onslaught of people made it difficult for people to get the exact merch they wanted.

“I was one of the first guys in, and they were already out of the size of the shirt I wanted, so I had to get something I didn’t particularly want,” said Pete.

Still, the once-in-a-lifetime nature of Power Trip made standing in line absolutely necessary for some. “This might be the last time we see some of these bands,” Pete said.

Power Trip did feature a pre-order line, where attendees who ordered their merch in advance were told they could simply come and pick it up. However, that line was just as long as the regular line. Although the merch tent was several hundred feet away from the festival entrance, the lines stretched almost all the way to the security screeners.

I decided to hop in line, joining my girlfriend, Alyssa, who got in line as soon as we entered the festival on Friday (around 5:30), to see firsthand how things were going.

Let’s start with the positives. Although the line was long, most of it was under a shaded structure, meaning attendees only had to be out in the sun for about 30 minutes. One of the festival workers was doing everything he could to speed things up, using his megaphone to say: “Make sure you have photos of the items you want. We don’t want you to come up here and ask for ‘that black shirt.’”

Another positive was the camaraderie. Nothing brings people together like waiting hours for a T-shirt. I saw people chatting about shows they have seen, sharing their folding chairs and making the most of the less-than-favorable situation.

As for the negatives: Once under the tent, attendees had to wait almost two hours to traverse the back-and-forth lines, causing us (and everyone else in line with us) to miss the first portion of Iron Maiden’s set. Some diehard fans quickly exited the line, even if they were close to the front, when Iron Maiden started playing.

One woman in the pre-order line told her friend: “I’ve been waiting for three hours.” There were only three or four registers open for the pre-order line, breaking the “grab and go” promise and incentive for ordering ahead.

Even though there were nearly 20 registers for the regular merch line, many were unattended, especially when Iron Maiden started playing. The man with the megaphone came out every half-hour and gave the same speech, this time saying: “You guys wanna go see the band, right?”

When a register was ready for the next customer, the cashier would wave a flag, signaling for the next attendee to approach. Unfortunately, people were not paying attention. A woman in line in front of me was yelling at people and threatening to jump the line and head for the open register.

After 2 hours and 15 minutes, we exited the line with our T-shirts—thankful we had gotten what we wanted, but bummed we missed much of Iron Maiden’s set.

On Saturday, I arrived an hour earlier, and I decided to revisit the merch tent to see if things had improved. To my surprise, the line was even longer—wrapping around in snake-like fashion outside before piling up toward the entrance. The pre-order line was longer, too. One vendor was taking advantage of the large line, selling water and drinks to the tired, hot attendees.

Mark, who waited an hour and a half in the pre-order line, said the experience was “just not worth it.”

“I think that probably what they did is underestimate the demand,” Mark said. “If we came here for another Power Trip, would we preorder? I can guarantee we wouldn’t.”

Mark had some ideas for improvement

“Maybe give everybody a chance to order earlier, and then give people an option of saying, ‘I want to pick up at the merchandise tent, or I’ll pay the extra shipping and handling, and you ship it to me,’” Mark said. “I think if you were able to do something like that, a lot of people wouldn’t be as annoyed. At the same time, it’s also 100 degrees, so I think that’s causing you to be a little bit more annoyed.”

Andy, who also had pre-ordered merch, was unhappy with the long line.

“You’re looking at three lines deep, two days into it now,” Andy said. “What’s the point in pre-ordering where you can get into this (regular) line, probably quicker, and get your stuff?”

Andy had yet to wait in line when we spoke.

“I have to wait until it either makes sense, or some other band that I don’t care about is playing,” he said.

Andy noted that everything about the festival on Saturday was better than on Friday—except for the merch experience.

“They have done better with signage and traffic and parking and things like that, so maybe tomorrow they’ll get this part straight,” he said.

Laura, after seeing the mess on Friday, showed up extra-early to grab her merch on Saturday. She waited two hours in the normal line.

“We were actually in a line that they ended up rerouting, which caused a whole section of us to have other people … cut in front of us,” she said. “Some people weren’t happy about that.”

I understand that it’s not easy to deal with an estimated 80,000 attendees, but extra locations, added workers and earlier venue opening times could help reduce the wait—assuring that nobody misses out on any of the great music.