Padel makes festival debut at Coachella and Stagecoach

Padel landed at Coachella and Stagecoach with two purpose-built courts just steps from the festival grounds, a 12-day desert activation that introduced the sport to more than 250,000 festivalgoers. The setup ran from April 9-20, 2025, opened with a 12-team mixed Pro-Am on April 11, and was built through a partnership between Padel Up, Playbypoint and SIUX.

The placement was no accident. Coachella and Stagecoach are both promoted by Goldenvoice and use the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, as their stage, with Coachella held on the 78-acre site in the Southern California desert. Stagecoach 2025 followed on April 25-27 with Zach Bryan, Jelly Roll and Luke Combs as headliners, putting padel in front of the same kind of music, fashion and celebrity audience that now drives festival culture.

The activation was open daily from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., giving attendees a chance to watch and sample the sport instead of seeing it only as a branded display. The mixed Pro-Am paired elite male professionals with top female amateur players, a format that gave the courts a live competitive edge while keeping the emphasis on accessibility. For a sport still building awareness in the United States, that mix of play and spectacle matters as much as the location.

Padel’s festival push also fit a broader market story. By April 2024, the sport was still described as a newcomer making inroads in New York City, but its global footprint was already much larger. A 2024 Padel FYI report put the sport at 25 million players worldwide, more than 40,000 courts and a €2.3 billion market size, while a July 2025 PadelNation UK report said 3,282 new clubs opened globally in 2024, a 26% increase, and that padel is now established in more than 90 countries. That kind of scale helps explain why promoters are testing padel in entertainment settings that can turn a first glimpse into a future club visit, a lesson booking or a new fan following the pro game online.