How 3 brothers accidentally created Coachella's most unique stage (original) (raw)

The creators of the Do LaB — Coachella's most colorful and carefree stage — never planned for it to become one of the festival's fan-favorite mainstays. In fact, brothers Dede, Jesse, and Josh Flemming never thought they were creating a stage at all. But almost 20 years after its debut at the Indio, Calif. event, the Do LaB has evolved from a DIY art installation to one of festivalgoers' favorite experiences.

"The way it started was our birthday party in 1999," Jesse tells EW while sitting backstage at the Do LaB during weekend 1 of Coachella 2023. "It was small, like 120 people for a little mountain rave up in the woods. But we started doing it every summer because it was just popular; people liked it. We were decorating, hanging up paper lanterns, Christmas lights, and cheap stuff, but people started asking us to come set it up for their parties. We actually started the company because people wanted to pay us and we didn't have a bank account, and we couldn't open a bank account without a company."

Coachella's Do LaB stage. Jess Gallo/Atlas Media

The brothers went from throwing parties to building sculptures, soon catching the attention of Coachella organizers who were looking to book artists for the festival. "We got this opportunity in 2005 to set up an art installation here in Coachella, and that's pretty much the birth of Do LaB," Jesse says.

But there's a lot more to the story. When the brothers and their crew showed up that first night to build their art installation inside the festival grounds, they treated it like any other party they'd thrown in the past, not thinking anything of it. "It was an art installation, but we don't go anywhere without setting up speakers first thing," Dede says. "If we're going to build something, we put on music first, and then we unload trucks and do everything. Still to this day, our whole crew is listening to music all the time. We snuck some speakers in with us, and all of our friends were DJs back then, and we were just playing music in this small dome."

Even when the festival opened up to attendees on the first day, they didn't stop playing music. "We had music on the whole time — after the festival ended at midnight, we just kept playing music, and everybody ran over to where the music was," Dede says with a laugh. "And it turned into this party of like a thousand people."

Coachella's Do LaB stage. Jess Gallo/Atlas Media

They considered that first year a massive success, but they weren't sure how the official festival organizers felt about their renegade setup. There are noise curfews in effect, after all. Regardless, when they were invited back to Coachella for a second year, they decided to do the same thing. Instead of asking for permission, they just agreed to ask for forgiveness if they got in trouble. "The second year, we did a different art piece, but a dome again, and we were like, 'We're going to bring the speakers again. I hope they don't get mad,'" Josh recalls. "We didn't ask, but we were just going to do it."

And it turned out that the Coachella organizers weren't mad at all. They actually needed the Do LaB to do what they did the year before — only a lot bigger this time.

"The week before, Coachella reached out to us and said, 'Are you guys bringing speakers again?' And we were like, 'Maybe?'" Josh says with a laugh. "Turns out they had overbooked the Mojave [stage] that year, and they asked us if they could put two artists in the dome. They actually gave us some bigger speakers and some more lighting, because they had official artists that were now playing in there. Once that happened, then we had the green light to just go for it. We started booking DJs and friends to come and play. Thankfully that one year, in 2006, they overbooked one of the stages and that just helped give us that permission to keep going."

Jesse smiles as he adds, "We just started running with it. We all had other jobs, but eventually I got laid off from my job, and we had been a couple years in at that point. We took a leap of faith — I didn't get a new job, and eventually their contracts ran out, and we all just started to focus on the Do LaB full-time. We lived in a warehouse for seven years because we couldn't afford to have a place to live and a warehouse to run a business, so we just lived in the warehouse."

All three brothers confirm they never actually made a profit running the immersive stage (and its companion music festival Lightning in a Bottle), and just continued to invest all their funds back into the Do LaB to continue evolving the massive shade structure, art pieces, lighting, and sound. "We were broke, starving artists for a long time," Josh says. "It was a company, but it wasn't really a business. If people paid us, we just used that money to buy some more lights or whatever. And that went on for years. It wasn't until when we did Lightning in a Bottle in 2006, I remember walking around being like, 'Holy s---, this is our future.' The three of us looked at each other and we all realized we had something special there. Then we just went all in on Do LaB projects."

Only a few years after accidentally creating a stage in the middle of one of the biggest festivals in the world, Coachella began advertising the Do LaB as an official installation on the grounds. "They started to actually announce our lineup, and they finally put the Do LaB, very tiny, at the very bottom of the lineup," Dede says. "And we're like, 'Holy s---, we're on a lineup!' It's a badge of honor being the very last thing on that poster."

Even with Coachella's official stamp of approval, the Do LaB still was the little stage that could, relying on its original DIY ethos to stay alive. "For the first many years, if you wanted to play at the Do LaB, you had to come help us build," Josh says. "And that actually happened. We couldn't believe it."

Odesza plays a surprise set at 2023 Coachella's Do LaB. Jess Gallo/Atlas Media

"Nobody got paid to do this, it was all volunteers," Jesse adds. "Even the major acts booked to play. We actually lost money doing this for the first 10 years. We would always spend more than the investors gave us. We invested it all into the structures — we just couldn't help ourselves. We had an opportunity to be in the middle of this festival, and we're like, 'Let's just give it everything we got.' There was no business plan. We aren't business people. We're just artists that happened to start a business, and the business got bigger and bigger."

Almost 20 years in, the Do LaB has grown into one of the most unique and fun places for attendees to spend time during the three-day festival. With a massive shade structure offering a respite from the hot desert sun, water misters to refresh the dancing crowd, and performances from electronic acts including Odesza, The Glitch Mob, Flight Facilities, James Blake, and more (including last-minute surprise additions to the lineup), the Do LaB is a must for any Coachella attendee. But behind the scenes, the brothers are still running it like it's that first renegade year.

"It's still like that — last night at four in the morning, don't tell anybody but we're running around the festival site poaching resources, stealing materials," Jesse admits with a laugh. "Sometimes you've got to just get it done, you know? They all go to bed at a reasonable hour, and we work all night, so we would go out and just steal picnic tables and plants from the festival grounds and bring them back here to decorate our area."

"They would give us an inch and we'd take a mile," Josh adds. "Honestly, we pushed our way in. It's just part of that Wild West mentality that we had those early years."

Coachella's Do LaB stage. Jess Gallo/Atlas Media

While the brothers always try to keep a party atmosphere going around them, even when they're working long hours in the desert heat to keep the lights on, they do admit it's a struggle. "We put our blood, sweat, and tears into everything out there, and we're getting older and it's hard," Jesse says. "But I don't know what else we're going to do. What are we going to do? Get real jobs?"

Dede adds, "Sometimes we talk about quitting. We're like, 'When are we going to be done?' But we'd probably throw in the towel and then just throw another party."

"A going-away party," Josh clarifies. "And then this would start all over again."

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