When Coachella madness descends upon the desert, local music lovers can enjoy sideshows—concerts taking place during, between and after Coachella weekends.
The newest sideshow happening during Coachella weekends is Goldenvoice Surf Club, a rebrand of Day Club—and this year’s location, fittingly, is the new Palm Springs Surf Club. During the Saturdays and Sundays of Coachella weekends, attendees can catch performances by Bicep (a DJ set), Barry Can’t Swim, salute, Mia Moretti and others during the first weekend; and Skream back-to-back with Benga, Mall Grab back-to-back with Skin on Skin, Kettama back-to-back withPartiboi69, Dylan Brady, JUNGLE (DJ set), Neil Frances (DJ set) and Juliet Mendoza during the second weekend.
During a recent phone interview with Goldenvoice Surf Club’s talent buyer, Becky Rosen-Checa, she explained how Day Club transformed into Surf Club.
“We have been doing an iteration of this event in the past at the Hilton, which was great, but we heard rumblings about the Surf Club,” she said. “Tyler McLean (of Splash House), who I work with, is very tied in with what’s going on in Palm Springs. … We thought, ‘We’ve done this with festival-level talent at the Hilton, but what could make it even better?’ Waterslides and a wave pool and surfing sounds pretty fun. … It seemed like such a cool concept, and they have an amphitheater outside, so it just seems so perfectly set up to have a live performance with the amenities they already offer there.”
Fans should keep their fingers crossed that all of the amenities will be operational at the Palm Springs Surf Club for these events—including the wave pool, the park’s main attraction. Per the GV Surf Club site: “Your pass grants you access to the park’s features including the music amphitheater, the main pool, lazy river, Amala Restaurant, and the Island Bar. For those in pursuit of heightened thrills, access to the water slides is available by purchasing an additional $20 pass on-site.”
Shortly after opening in the new year, PSCC announced the wave pool had closed due to “technical challenges.” As of this writing, it remains closed. Goldenvoice Surf Club organizers told the Independent that “sessions will be announced and reserved via the Palm Springs Surf Club website,” but no reservations were available as of this story’s publication.
A while back—before the wave-pool issue—I toured the park with developer Timothy O’Byrne.
“As we concepted this and built out everything, one of the important things that we realized, and what really piqued our interest, was not just the surfing,” he said. “For us, surfing is a beautiful, wonderful piece to have in the puzzle, but only a piece. The waterslides, lazy river, the adult pool, all the meeting spaces, the various restaurants and (food and beverage) outlets we have, that’s really where we think a lot of the attraction will come from. Being able to be part of the community where everyone can come and enjoy, from kids to adults to pro surfers to beginning surfers—that was our vision, so that’s what we jumped on.”
“Tyler McLean (of Splash House), who I work with, is very tied in with what’s going on in Palm Springs. … We thought, ‘We’ve done this with festival-level talent at the Hilton, but what could make it even better?’”
Goldenvoice Surf Club talent buyer Becky Rosen-Checa
The Palm Springs Surf Club’s ability to host concerts alongside aquatic fun has led to a promising relationship between the park and Goldenvoice.
“We’re working on a bunch of stuff there,” Rosen-Checa said. “The soonest thing that we’re doing (after Goldenvoice Surf Club) is we’re going to do some programming during Stagecoach. … I believe there’s some other stuff that other buyers are working on, but we definitely want to keep booking stuff there. It’s a really cool and unique space, and the fact that it also lends itself to live music is very cool.”
When I toured the Surf Club in January, I viewed both the amphitheater area and another space where an events hall is slated to be built.
“We’re really excited that we created that beautiful area,” O’Byrne said. “It’s going to be a wonderful entertainment venue for Palm Springs, whether it be speeches, lectures, concerts, whatever the thing would be. We think it’s kind of cool to have all that variation in one location, especially with surfing going on in the background.”
Rosen-Checa credited Splash House’s McLean for offering Goldenvoice ideas on ways to expand programming in the Coachella Valley.
“He’s brought us some of these ideas like the (Palm Springs) Air Museum and the Surf Club,” Rosen-Checa said. “Obviously we’ve done Coachella for forever, but I think it’s really cool that Palm Springs is becoming an electronic music destination. I feel like it has kind of exploded more and more over the past few years—and who doesn’t love going out to Palm Springs? If there’s cool music in cool venues, I feel like that makes it even more attractive. I look for any reason to get out of L.A. and go out there.”
Rosen-Checa said even more Goldenvoice events could come to the valley.
“There are so many cool opportunities out there that are not quite tapped into yet,” she said. “All the Goldenvoice stuff that we do out there is very non-traditional … Being able to do this where it still feels (Angelenos are) getting out of town, but close enough that it could easily just be a day trip, is really unique.”
Goldenvoice hopes to deepen this connection by making ticket prices reasonable. Goldenvoice Surf Club admission starts at $40, before fees, for a one-day pass.
“We all know how much tickets to festivals cost, and it’s usually a lot, and that’s unavoidable, for the most part,” Rosen-Checa said. “We really liked that we could make this one work on a cheaper ticket.”
O’Byrne told me in January that he and his fellow Palm Springs Surf Club managers are excited to see what comes of the venue.
“We are taking the philosophy that we want this to have its own heartbeat, and then let the community decide what that heartbeat is,” O’Byrne said. “We’re just excited to get people in here and let them start telling us what they think this should be and how we should direct it. We really tried to maximize the opportunity for the park to have its own soul and its own life, and we’ll let the community tell us what that is, as opposed to us trying just to tell the community. I’m just excited to see how this grows out and gets taken by the community.”
For tickets and more information, visit gvsurfclub.com
