Credit: BAMBII

Coachella 2025: Bambii “spent thousands of my own money” to perform amid technical difficulties

Mon 14 April 2025 14:25, UK

Canadian DJ Bambii has criticised Coachella for not providing an adequate sound system after her set was plagued by technical difficulties. The electronic artist also revealed she was not paid to perform.

Bambii, real name Kirsten Azan, played the Do Lab stage at the Californian festival on April 11th. Over the course of the weekend, other acts to grace the arena included Blu DeTiger, Confidence Man, Layla Benitez, Rudim3ntal, and Anderson Paak’s alter-ego DJ Pee Wee.

Per Mixmag, Bambii took to Instagram Stories following her performance to share her true experience of performing in the desert. She stated that she felt “misrepresented and embarrassed in front of thousands” due to the issues with the sound system.

Bambii also revealed she lost money by performing at Coachella, explaining, “I know the move would be to just post the picture in front of the giant crowd and feed the illusion of success but in reality I wasn’t being paid, flew myself out, and spent thousands of my own money to invest in an opportunity.”

While the DJ acknowledged that Coachella is an opportunity to reach a wide audience, she shared her frustration at the equipment situation, adding, “Like so many other artists on that bill it took a lot of hard work to even get to the position to be booked, music is my entire life and I believe at a bare minimum the least a festival as reputable as COACHELLA could provide artists they aren’t paying….is a WORKING SOUND SYSTEM.”

Additionally, in another post, Bambii claimed that Coachella’s alleged lack of care regarding the equipment was due to the artists on the stage, stating, “Though some effort was made after my team and I pushed the issue I believe there was a comfort with letting the artists play below industry standard because we were primarily all seen as up-and-coming female artists.”

Bambii also questioned the “normalisation” surrounding artists playing for free which she thinks is an “ultimatum that disproportionately gets offered more to POC or female artists”.

Explaining her reasoning for coming forward to detail her experience of Coachella, Bambii said it “just isn’t honest” if she shared an image from her set while thanking the Californian festival, continuing, “In a small way, it kinda normalises these unfair exchanges and how these spaces exploit our aspirations of being on their platforms.”

Coachella, which resumes on April 18th for weekend two, has yet to respond to Bambii’s comments.