YouTube’s partnership with NFL Sunday Ticket for its inaugural season has led to major changes in how the streaming platform plans to air this year’s Coachella music festival, set to kick off on April 12 at 4 p.m. PST. YouTube’s Coachella offering will focus on enhancing the living room TV experience, much like NFL Sunday Ticket.
For its 12th year broadcasting Coachella, YouTube is debuting a feature called “Multiview” that lets viewers watch up to four festival stages at once on their connected TVs. Moreover, YouTube will stream a total of six stages.
The importance of multiview in Coachella
Ali Rivera, YouTube’s head of live music and artist partnerships, reveals the importance of Multiview, emphasizing, “With its success as a key feature of NFL Sunday Ticket, we see great potential for enhancing the Coachella viewing experience.” Rivera underscores YouTube’s strategic emphasis on live events, noting the significant investment in NFL Sunday Ticket as a crucial element. This move is seen as part of a broader strategic vision.
Rivera highlights how the introduction of Multiview at Coachella showcases the positive impact our work on NFL Sunday Ticket will have on all YouTube users. The feature was first introduced on YouTube TV during March Madness in preparation for our first NFL Sunday Ticket season. Now, we are excited to bring Multiview to a worldwide audience on YouTube, allowing fans to fully immerse themselves in the Coachella experience no matter where they are located.
Partnerships and enhancements
Rivera underscores the importance of partnerships in enabling YouTube to provide unique live experiences. By utilizing their pool of creators for on-site coverage, they seamlessly incorporate popular YouTube features and interactive elements into sports and music events.
In addition to Multiview, YouTube is adding more features to improve the Coachella experience including stage audio switching, live fan chats, and QR codes for easy shopping of merchandise.
Furthermore, Rivera mentions that they will be creating unique behind-the-scenes footage on YouTube Shorts and, for the very first time, will be teaming up with Highsnobiety to photograph artists and creators backstage.
Rivera notes the shift in content consumption, with YouTube watch time on connected TVs surpassing 1 billion hours daily. While the living room was once a place for passive viewing, viewers now lean in when engaged. Features like Shopping and Live Chat are being integrated to deepen fan engagement with Coachella, regardless of location or device.
