The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival is one of the largest music events in the world, and well known for blending technology and entertainment to provide its fans with innovative, sensory-pushing experiences. Following a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, Coachella wanted to welcome fans back to this year’s festival via a virtual gateway called the “Coachellaverse,” and do this on a global scale using augmented reality.

More than a dozen Spark creators collaborated on this year’s Coachellaverse experience, with each creator taking on the challenge of concepting, designing and building an AR effect for Instagram, using some of the most advanced capabilities available in Spark AR Studio. And while each creator’s effect was designed to stand alone as its own AR experience, they all ultimately connected to help fans interact with a playful collection of characters, objects, textures, and sounds in the Coachellaverse.

Millions of fans participated in the Coachella festival this year across the live event and its virtual touchpoints, with the AR effects alone generating more than 100,000 opens on Instagram — helping fans from Los Angeles and Rio, to Tokyo and London, find and experience their own slice of the Coachellaverse.

With the festival having recently concluded, we’re excited to roll out a new docuseries today that gives you a unique glimpse into the making-of story for several of the Coachellaverse effects, as told through the first-hand experience and perspectives of four creators, including Alexis Zerafa, Helena Dong, Luke Hurd, and Paige Piskin.

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to bring a complex AR project to life for millions of fans, Building the Coachellaverse is your chance to explore this story, and go behind-the-scenes with some of the most experienced creators using the Spark AR platform.

Building the Coachellaverse

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Over the next few weeks we’ll be going further into this story with four additional interviews that explore how each creator used a range of advanced Spark AR capabilities, from target tracking and body tracking, to AR objects and geo-anchoring (currently in beta), to help bring the Coachellaverse to millions of fans all over the world. Here’s a quick preview of what’s coming, all of which you can watch by following Spark AR Creators on Facebook or Instagram.

Alexis Zerafa

Learn how Alexis used target tracking to build the AR effect “First Glimpse”

Luke Hurd

Explore how Luke built “A Virtual Adventure,” using geo-anchored AR objects

(geo-anchoring capabilities are currently in beta)

Paige Piskin

Watch Paige discuss how she used 2D body tracking to create butterfly “Wings”

Helena Dong

See how Helena used geo-anchored AR objects to engage fans with “Third Contact in NYC”

(geo-anchoring capabilities are currently in beta)

While we’re capturing this Coachella story from the perspectives of Alexis, Luke, Paige, and Helena, it’s important to note that an additional 9 creators collaborated on this year’s Coachella project, including Allan Berger, BLNK Digital, Cibelle Bastos, Girls Who Code (GWC), Isabelle Udo, Jeferson Arujo, Mitsuko Ono, Nigel Matambo, and Piper ZY. Our thanks and congrats to all of the talented creators that contributed their expertise on this project!

This year’s Coachellaverse activation was only the beginning of a much longer-term strategy for using AR to help extend and enrich the fan experience. We can’t wait to see how this project evolves!

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