Social media users are freaking out over the prices of food after influencers show off what they eat in a day at Coachella.
Coachella is officially underway, with festivalgoers kicking off day one in the desert.
But alongside the music and the atmosphere, one topic is taking over the conversation online: the cost of food and drinks inside the festival.
Tickets and accommodation packages can already run anywhere from a few hundred dollars to well over a thousand, depending on what you book. Some people assumed the steep spending would end there.
It doesn’t.
Creators attending the festival have been posting meal-by-meal breakdowns from the campgrounds and vendor areas, and the totals have left viewers stunned.
Prices like last year’s viral example haven’t helped expectations either. In 2024, @jackietanti paid $64 for a burrito and a non-alcoholic drink, and it looks like this year’s costs are in the same ballpark.
Influencer Cristina Gonzalez (@cristinaggonzalez) shared what day one looked like starting at breakfast—though her biggest surprise wasn’t food, it was coffee.
In most places, a matcha or coffee might be a few dollars. At Coachella, she suggested you should be prepared for prices that can more than double once you’re inside the festival bubble.
In her TikTok, she showed a breakfast made up of French toast cooked at camp with her friends, plus pastries, alongside a matcha that, according to her, had jumped in price overnight.
She said it was $6 the day before, but $13 the next morning—and that adding foamed milk cost another $2.50.
Gonzalez also claimed a coffee was $17. In her video, the plastic cup appeared to read ‘VB LAT’, along with ‘OAT’ and ‘Add Canoli’.
That may indicate it wasn’t a basic coffee order, but a specialty drink with substitutions and add-ons.
Even so, the total added up quickly: ‘$53 for three coffees and one matcha’.
Despite the sticker shock, she still praised the taste, saying it was the ‘best festival coffee I’ve ever had.’
By lunchtime, the conversation shifted from caffeine to festival staples—like burritos.
But anyone expecting typical food-truck pricing might be in for a surprise.
Gonzalez stopped by the One Stop Taco Shop and bought a burrito served in two halves for $23.
From the video, it didn’t appear especially large, though it did look appetizing.
For dinner, another creator, @natashascloset, gave viewers a look at her own pick from the festival options.
She chose a small pizza (four slices) plus a drink to take away.
Natasha said the total was $34—and she also mentioned someone nearby warned her the pizza was ‘raw’ before she ordered.
After tasting it, she said hers wasn’t raw and initially scored it a 7.95 out of 10, later dropping it to 7.5 when she noticed some of the ‘edges’ were ‘chewy’.
So what would that kind of day cost if someone followed along?
Leaving out the ‘$53 for three coffees and one matcha’ and counting just one $17 coffee instead, plus the $23 burrito and the $34 pizza, the total comes to $74 for the day’s food and drink shown.
And online, plenty of people said that’s far more than they expected.
Under the pizza clip, one viewer reacted: “WTF 34 ?????.”
On the burrito post, another wrote: “23 dollars for a burrito what.”
And on the breakfast video, someone commented: “ngl $17 coffee is a crime.”
Based on the responses, lots of viewers aren’t thrilled with festival markups.
For some, the takeaway seems simple: bring what you can, and save the splurges for when it’s really worth it—otherwise, maybe stick to Trader Joes.