Who really benefits from the multi-camera broadcast of Coachella on YouTube?

YouTube wants to make you watch multiple Coachella scenes at the same time, but why?

YouTube is promoting its exclusive streaming coverage of Coachella, which starts next week. The flagship feature is the platform's multiview experience (already familiar to sports fans) for the two-weekend festival. Our question from this announcement is the following: who wants to watch performances by multiple artists at once, when you can only listen to one?

The mysterious multiview experience

The multiview experience will allow you to watch up to four stages simultaneously, letting you choose which one you want to hear: just like how multiview works for March Madness, NFL games, or any other sporting event. Here's how YouTube presents the feature: "Two of your favorite bands are playing on different stages at the same time? No problem, multiview will enable you, and your friends, to follow both performances at the same time via the YouTube app on your TV, at no extra cost."

Why is that a bit strange?

Maybe I am from the wrong generation and have too long an attention span, but who wants to watch an artist perform without hearing them? That’s what will happen for the three scenes you don’t listen to. Wouldn’t it be better to... just watch the one you’re listening to? And then catch up on the others later when you can listen to them too?

The logic behind multiview

Multiview for sporting events makes sense because there are scores to follow and timeout, halftime, and blowout victories that allow you to shift your attention to another game. You don’t need to hear an NBA game to follow the ball. (According to commentators, you might even prefer not to hear it.) It’s mainly a visual experience; audio is secondary.

But music is different

But music, even when played live with all the lighting effects, fog machines, and dance that accompany it, remains primarily an auditory experience. If several artists you like are playing at the same time, you still can’t (and wouldn’t want to) listen to more than one simultaneously. In YouTube’s multiview, you choose one scene to listen to and the others to... watch singing and dancing in silence inside a little box next to two other performances, also mute. Brilliant, right?

It seems to be a solution looking for a problem — YouTube applying its existing technology (which, to be fair, works very well with sports) to a music festival. No matter that it’s not very logical.

Aside from these perplexing thoughts, YouTube will offer six live streams to switch between (but, again, only four at a time in multiview). This includes Sonora for the first weekend and Yuma for the second. This year's headliners include Lana Del Rey, Doja Cat, No Doubt, and Tyler, the Creator.

Between performances, YouTube will broadcast "special editorial content" from the artists on site. Each day after the last performance of the night, the Coachella channel on YouTube will rebroadcast the day’s performances until the live stream resumes the next day. That seems like a better way to catch up on performances you didn’t see live.

The event takes place in Indio, California, about 130 miles east of Los Angeles, from April 12 to 14 and April 19 to 21. You can tune into the Coachella channel on YouTube.