It’s 1 a.m. on Thursday—Day 0 of Coachella 2026—and festival-goers have already started to gather.
Their meeting place? The Ralphs grocery store on Jefferson Street in Indio.
Even though Coachella weekend doesn’t really begin until Friday, car camping opens early Thursday morning—and some campers are eager to get the best spots. So for the past few years, the Indio Ralphs parking lot has become the home of a pre-festival party. Located just down the street from the camping grounds, Ralphs is where attendees get their last-minute shopping done, decorate their cars for the CARPOOLCHELLA contest, party and spread good vibes with fellow fest-goers, as they wait for word that the Coachella camping grounds are open. (While camping doesn’t officially open until 9 a.m., security usually lets people in around 3 a.m.)
Word has spread about the Ralphs Day 0 meetup on the Coachella subreddit, an online forum for attendees and Coachella fans to discuss the festival. After reading about it for years, I decided to go witness the pre-fest festivities firsthand.
I arrived shortly after 1 a.m. to a packed and lively parking lot. Some people were sleeping in their cars; others were chatting with friends and preparing their vehicles for the fest.
“Honestly, it’s been an amazing experience,” said an attendee named Miguel. This is both his second Coachella and his second year coming to party at Ralphs. “I think it was something that we really enjoyed as a group. It also brings us closer as friends. It’s a great bonding experience for us. We’re currently decorating the cars and just making sure it pops. We’re obviously hyped to have a good time again and enjoy the desert.”
Miguel recognized how … unconventional it is to hang out in a grocery store parking lot at 1 a.m. on a Thursday.
“I think it’s kind of ironic … but meeting everybody else who’s here and sharing the same experience just elevates the mood,” Miguel said. “I’m hyped to go to the festival and just have a good time.”
Luke Anthony said coming to Ralphs before Coachella is like “hitting the gym to stay ready.”
“If you come into a fest like this, and you want to be a good people person and have a good time, you’ve got to do it as much as you can, so you just stay in flow,” he said. “You can’t come in cold and expect to be hot.”
Gensi, another parking lot party-goer, said excitement starts to set in during the Day 0 Ralphs festivities.
“It’s like, ‘Oh shit, this is happening now,’” Gensi said. “Once everyone is here, we just start laughing, start getting ready, and you start to get—not nervous, but that feeling like we’re ready to get this weekend started.”
Gensi said there’s true camaraderie at the early-morning meetup.
“Everyone here is super-nice, and everyone’s very understanding,” Gensi said. “Last year, some girls were like, ‘Hey, do you guys have any markers? Can we use them, too?’ Everyone is super friendly. You have that community within, so no one’s ever being rude or anything. You also meet people here, too, so you just become buddies with everyone. It’s just a vibe.”
According to party-goer Bella, the lack of distractions and stimuli in the parking lot add to that vibe.
“There are no canopies; there’s no camping. There’s nothing to obstruct your field of vision of every person here,” Bella said. “If you make eye contact with somebody, you’re like, ‘Hey, let’s have a chat.’”
While some make new friends, Briana caught up with old friends before the craziness of Coachella began.
“We have friends who meet us from out of state here, and we basically just pre-game here, chill here—until someone on Reddit says that the gates are open, and then we all just drive up there,” Briana said.
KC called the party are a “calm before the storm” situation.
“We’re keeping an eye out for when the line starts, so toes are raised,” KC said. “It feels like here, everyone’s holding their breath. You’ll see at 2 a.m., when the first car leaves, everyone just stops their conversations mid-go, and everyone runs to their cars, gets in the line—and it gets serious. We’re all here to get a good spot. We all support each other. At the polo fields, it’s a free-for-all, so it’s nice to have a Christmas truce.”
Ben said “communal suffering” brings people together during the Ralphs Day 0 party.
“We’re all about to go experience something pretty gnarly together, so we might as well sit and drink and get to know each other before we do this together,” he said.
KC said the Day 0 pre-party has grown into a positive experience—but it didn’t start that way.
“We are from Colorado, so we don’t know anything about anything, but we saw on the Reddit that all the cool kids come to Ralphs,” KC said. “We came here the first year, and it was actually really uncomfortable. There was police patrolling everything, and you couldn’t stay here for longer than 30 minutes without them knocking on your windows.”
But in 2026, there were porta potties, music and even a pop-up DJ set from NDA.
Joseph Correa said the gathering of eager attendees brings out the best in people—even if it takes place in a supermarket parking lot.
“Everyone is so excited and ready,” he said. “… People have just been showing up and just saying hi, or just vibing out. It’s cool just to see that, especially nowadays, where everybody’s on their own. It’s cool that a grocery store parking lot can bring everybody together.”
