By Eric B. Thornton
If you’ve spent any time in the Coachella Valley during festival season, you already know that the party doesn’t stop when the headliners take their final bow. For the past five years, Framework— LA’s gold standard for underground house and techno curation — has been quietly running one of the most essential after-hours operations in the desert. Framework In The Desert is back for its 5th Anniversary, April 10–12, and the lineup they’ve assembled reads like a fever dream for anyone who’s ever lingered at the Yuma Tent a little longer than they should have.
The three-night run goes down at the Atlantic Aviation airport hangar in Thermal, CA — a short drive from the Indio festival grounds and, frankly, exactly the kind of industrial-cool venue Framework has built its entire identity around. Think warehouse energy meets desert air meets an actual art car stage. That last part is not a metaphor.
The Long Feng Art Car Is Back
Returning after its debut at last year’s record-breaking edition — which drew 14,000+ guests across three nights — is the Long Feng Art Car, a Burning Man–born mutant vehicle with twirling dancers, towering mechanized dragon heads, and LED panels that genuinely need to be seen to be believed. It’s the kind of stage setup that makes you feel like you wandered into something you weren’t supposed to find. Which, of course, is peak Framework.
The Lineup
Friday, April 10 opens with Disclosure (DJ Set) and a B2B from KETTAMA and Prospa, plus support from UK tech-house producer Riordan and Chicago’s own Azzecca. Saturday, April 11 belongs to Brazilian techno heavyweight Mochakk, and German experimentalist Boys Noize. Then Sunday, April 12 closes out the weekend with trance legend Armin van Buuren, Berlin party-starter Marlon Hoffstadt, and Parisian multi-instrumentalist Chloé Calliet.
It’s a deliberately wide-ranging bill — Disclosure and Armin van Buuren sharing a weekend with Boys Noize and Mochakk is the kind of cross-pollination that only really works when the venue and production can hold it all together. Framework In The Desert has earned that credibility.
Five Years Deep
When Framework launched the event in 2022 — one of the first-ever festival afterparties in the Coachella Valley open to the public — it filled a very specific gap: a more intimate room for the artists who might not land a main stage slot but absolutely deserve your full attention at 1 AM. Five editions in, that premise hasn’t changed. The hangar just keeps getting more elaborate, the lineups more ambitious, and the crowd better versed in why they’re there.
Tickets go on sale Thursday. Don’t overthink it.
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