'I like to do chugs and hugs': Coachella tradition draws hundreds |
Coachella attendees gather to shotgun beers in Indio, Calif., on April 10, 2026.
Shortly before noon on Friday, a festivalgoer named Planty Stamey ran around to nearby tents inside the Coachella campgrounds: “Anyone got a beer?” Stamey, visible from a shock of pink hair, gathered any beverage available — Modelos, White Claws, Twisted Teas — from campers and chucked them at passersby. Within a few minutes, the handful of people gathered before Stamey had ballooned into a crowd of several hundred. Each person gripped their beer sideways in one hand, keys in another.
On the count of three, the entire group whooped “Happy Coachella!” and shotgunned their beers in unison. “That was so healing,” cooed someone nearby.
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For nearly fifteen years, this cheeky event — hosted a little over an hour before the gates open to the public — has marked the beginning of the Coachella weekend for a subsect of very online beer drinkers. Participation in the annual shotgun varies. Sometimes, it will draw a few dozen people; during one year, over 450 people cracked open beers simultaneously for a celebratory chug, Stamey said.
Coachella attendees gather to shotgun beers in Indio, Calif., on April 10, 2026.
Several chuggers had never been to the beer shotgun before. Travis F., a newcomer to Coachella, went to work this morning then beelined to the campground to participate. “I’m trying to find all the traditions,” he said. “I saw this and was like, ‘Why not?’”
Stamey, the beer shotgun’s founder, has........