Coachella by the dance count, 1999 to 2026

The first Coachella was two days in October 1999, and the index holds its lineup: 38 names. Fifteen of them have played at least two other dance festivals in our records. Derrick May, Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson, the three Detroit originals, on one bill. Richie Hawtin, whose first indexed booking anywhere is that weekend. Underworld, The Chemical Brothers, Moby, LTJ Bukem, BT. And Simply Jeff, whose history in the index starts at Nocturnal Wonderland 1995, the oldest edition we hold, and runs to a Nocturnal Wonderland date this September.

Coachella was two-fifths a dance festival on the day it opened. That is the count. Here is what it did next.

The measure

We can't tell you what a festival intended. We can tell you who was on the bill and where else they have played. So the measure here is circuit share: the fraction of a Coachella lineup that has appeared on at least two different dance festivals elsewhere in the Scene Index. The reference set is 703 editions across 173 festivals, everything in the index that isn't itself a multi-genre bill like Lollapalooza, Outside Lands or Portola. An indie band with one Sónar date doesn't count. Someone with a CRSSD and an EDC does.

It is a lifetime measure. An act counts if it worked the circuit before or after its Coachella year, which flatters the early years a little and can't yet flatter 2026 at all. Bear that in mind at the end.

We hold 24 Coachella years, 1999 and 2001 through 2018, then 2022 through 2026, 1,856 distinct artists across them. Where a year has two weekends the lineups are merged.

1999 to 2002: it opened as one

Circuit share: 39% in 1999, 42% in 2001, 48% in 2002. Nearly half of the 2002 bill had, or would go on to have, a dance-festival record two festivals deep. That 48% stood as the festival's high-water mark for thirteen years.

2003 to 2009: the indie years

Then it fell, and kept falling: 32%, 25%, 26%, 24%, and a floor of 22% in 2007, on a bill that had grown to 90 names. The dance names were still there. 2005 has Armin van Buuren, Diplo, Four Tet, Tiga and The Chemical Brothers again. 2006 has Carl Cox, Kaskade, Paul Oakenfold, Derrick Carter and Louie Vega. But the bill around them had tripled and the additions were bands. In 2005 and 2006 roughly half of every lineup, 32 of 61 and 35 of 68, appears nowhere else in the index at all.

2010 to 2018: the climb back

36% in 2010, then 33, 37, 46, 47, and in 2015 the first year over half: 75 of 145 names, 52%. 2016 held at 51%. 2017 had 66 circuit names, and by depth of dance record the top of that list is DJ Snake, Loco Dice, Richie Hawtin, Martin Garrix, Dillon Francis. It eased to 46% in 2017 and 41% in 2018.

2022 to 2026: the record, then the biggest bill

2022 came back at 37%. Then 2023 set the record: 92 circuit names on a 168-name bill, 55%, more than any Coachella before or since. Jamie Jones, Adam Beyer, Porter Robinson, Eric Prydz, Malaa, MK, Cloonee, Skrillex. Loosen the measure to a single dance festival anywhere and 2023 reads 68%.

2024 and 2025 read 41% and 49%. Then this year: Coachella 2026 is the largest bill in the festival's history in the index, 189 distinct names across the two weekends, and 75 of them are circuit names, 40%. By depth of record the deepest are Kaskade, Subtronics, Green Velvet, Armin van Buuren, AFROJACK, DJ Snake, Rezz. Four of the 189 sit in the top 25 of the upcoming Most Booked board right now: Subtronics, KETTAMA, Levity, Prospa.

The other side of that 189 is worth stating. Sixty-seven of the names on the 2026 bill appear nowhere else in the index, more than any previous year in absolute terms. The bill grew in both directions at once.

The ones who kept coming back

Richie Hawtin has played six Coachellas across 23 years: 1999, 2003, 2007, 2013, 2017 and 2022. The Chemical Brothers six between 1999 and 2011. Fatboy Slim five, from 2001 to 2026, a quarter of a century between his first and his latest. Kaskade five, 2006 to 2026. Disclosure five, 2013 to 2026. David Guetta, Justice and Calvin Harris five each. Underworld four, spread over 1999, 2003, 2016 and 2023. Moby three, in 1999, 2013 and 2026.

That is what a lifetime measure is for. The 1999 bill wasn't a phase the festival grew out of: eight of its fifteen circuit names came back to Coachella at least once, and three of them — Hawtin in 2022, Underworld in 2023, Moby this year — were still on the poster more than twenty years later.

What the count can't say

We hold no 2019 lineup, and 2020 and 2021 were not held. The 2024 and 2025 rows sit at 92 and 99 names, short of a full Coachella bill, so treat those two years' shares as provisional; the mid-2000s rows are also likely light on undercard.

Circuit share is blind to the slot and the stage. It counts a name on the poster the same whether it closed the main stage or opened a tent at two in the afternoon, and it doesn't know the Sahara from the Yuma. It also depends on a reference set that is US-heavy and densest after 2010, which is one reason we require two festivals rather than one, and it is being backfilled as we write, so these figures will move.

The 2026 number is the one most likely to move up. Every earlier year had time for its newcomers to work the circuit before we counted. 2026's have had four months.

Coachella 2027 isn't in our ticket feed, so this post carries no ticket link. Every figure above is recomputable from the public catalog, and each Coachella edition's page lists its lineup.

Want a festival's full lineup history and how its bill relates to the rest of the circuit, rather than one snapshot? Tell us what you're trying to answer — casey@electricstate.app — and we'll tell you straight whether the data supports it.

Electric State is free on the App Store, on Google Play, and at electricstate.app — lineups, artist pages and the booking history this post is computed from.

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