Call it a change of tune.
As it kicks off this weekend, the Coachella Music Festival has for the first time partnered with a non-alcoholic retailer, The New Bar, to offer zero-proof cocktails and ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages at the two-weekend concert event in Southern California.
The Venice, California-based, alcohol-free bottle shop will curate and serve a variety of zero-proof beverages to festival goers at two locations: a large bar in the general admission Indio Central Market as well as a full-service satellite bar at the 12 Peaks VIP area near the mainstage.
The bars will be offering a curated selection of specialty Coachella-inspired NA cocktails, alcohol-free spirits, wine, beer and RTDs from brands like Kin, HOP WTR and Hiyo, among others.
Brianda Gonzalez, who founded The New Bar in 2022, said she always dreamed of partnering with Coachella even as she was building out the bottle shop’s early business plan.
“I felt that this would be a no-brainer for us as a brand and also just an incredible way to have an impact on the category,” she said. “To really show people that non-alc has a place wherever a lot of fun is being had.”
Gonzalez and her team put together a proposal in December and presented it to Coachella organizer Goldenvoice only half a year after opening The New Bar’s doors, pitching the collaboration as a way to offer the NA and sober curious community an inclusive experience at the event.
“It kind of takes a specialized, dedicated partner to help identify the right brands, to really be able to activate the [non-alcoholic] initiative in a way that’s truly impactful,” Gonzalez said.
Once the deal was agreed, Gonzalez then had to develop a cocktail list, curate the bar’s offers, develop a pricing structure and find brands who would want to partner with The New Bar at the event.
That ended up being the easy part.
Gonzalez tapped Portland, Oregon-based emerging brand For Bitter For Worse to join her in the desert to serve the brand’s signature Eva’s Spritz and Rose City Fizz RTD cans. The brand has previous experience in activations at Sundance Film Festival and the Edwardian Festival in San Francisco but Coachella offers an opportunity to continue to be part of the discussion around inclusivity and flexible drinking occasions, said co-founder Shelley Elkovich.
“At events like festivals, we’re meeting customers where they are, out having a good time and they want good options,” she said. “About 80% of people who drink products like ours, actually still drink alcohol, but they want to stay in the occasion as they’re moderating.”
With only a couple weeks to prepare, Elkovich quickly got her team working to design Indio-branded schwag like shirts and shipped one pallet of about 1,000 cans down initially with another following behind it.
The six-day, two weekend event offers many brands a way to reach consumers through partnerships on-site like Electrolit’s announcement as the “official hydration partner” of the festival. Newcomer Hello Soju is debuting its canned soju beverage at Coachella this year.
Partnerships are just one way a brand can utilize music events and festivals to gain more visibility. Many brands scour social media for posts of various celebrities and influencers wearing, eating or drinking their brands. Producer and DJ Diplo was snapped holding a can of non-alc brand Hiyo’s product at the Burning Man art festival this past summer and reposted the photo on the brand’s Instagram account.
Woman-owned, zero-proof spirits brand Spiritless is also heading to the desert, bringing its distilled non-alcoholic bourbon whiskey Kentucky 74 and NA tequila Jalisco 75 to make craft alcohol-free cocktails.
The Austin, Texas-based brand has some experience offering a booze-free alternative at outdoor live events like the Food and Wine Festivals in Aspen and Atlanta but the partnership with The New Bar at Coachella marks its first really large activation at a music festival.
Spiritless’ footprint ranges over 4,000 locations from restaurants and bars to nationwide distribution in retailers like Total Wine and BevMo as well as launches in Kroger, Walmart, Walgreens and CVS this year, but the non-alc brand hopes to do more live events to increase its visibility to sober-curious consumers.
“We are collaborating with beverage programs that are popping up inside festivals,” Spiritless co-founder and CEO Lauren Chitwood said. “We’re really focused on finding partners and being with people that – one – we know are going to make incredible drinks. And – two – have a passion for education and really bringing these products to the masses.”
Founded in 1999, Coachella has steadily grown into one of the biggest outdoor music festivals in the U.S. with around 125,000 people attending each day of the two Friday, Saturday and Sunday weekends. With over $100 million dollars generated in profits each year, the event offers a unique proving ground for many non-alc brands to gain more visibility not only among attendees but music promoters and venue organizers who make decisions on what is served at live events.
A huge part of this lies in education. Outdoor music festivals traditionally are places where drinking is part of the culture, but at times can be counterproductive to enjoying oneself all-day in the sun. For non-alc brands it comes to “tailoring the messaging for the right place at the right time,” Chitwood said.
“In a setting like Coachella, people are experiencing the festival in a variety of ways and, frankly, probably with a variety of different experiences,” she added. “How can Spiritless fit into that moment to make you feel good about the decisions that you’re making for yourself and be a great tool in your toolkit.”