Daisy Chain blooms into a festival of music and art

Olivia Rodrigo is gaining worldwide praise for her all female artist, charity-driven music festival, Daisy Chain Fields. The festival took place on Aug. 29 in Irvine, and featured a lineup of 14 female artists over a 10-hour day. All of the festivals $20 million proceeds will be evenly split among 10 different charities, including Baby2Baby, National Women’s Law Center, and others. The festival’s feminist focus is present in the lineup.

For other festivals, such as Stagecoach or Coachella, a tiered lineup is shared with descending font-size on flyers based on popularity of the artist, creating a hierarchy. This is released months prior to the festival itself. For Daisy Chain Fields, each artist was “billed” on the flyer in the same font-size, only organized in alphabetical order, creating a sense of equality and eliminating the financial hierarchy present in many other festival lineups.

Shortly after this lineup dropped and tickets were released for purchase, Daisy Chain Fields held a volunteer-based raffle for two tickets to the festival. They partnered with L.A. Works, an L.A. nonprofit that connects those interested in volunteering with vulnerable communities. The Daisy Chain Reaction Volunteer Drive let anyone who registered complete a volunteer shift for a limited period of time, and by doing so they were automatically entered in the raffle.

However, the festival would only go through with the raffle if a minimum of 1,000 collective volunteer-hours were reached. This extra detail made this into a team effort, and after reaching the goal of 1000 volunteer hours, two participants received tickets.

One major difference that sets Daisy Chain apart was that each artist performed at this festival for free. After being personally called and asked by Rodrigo, artists like Chappel Roan, Doechii, and others volunteered their time free of charge to ensure that the festival proceeds went to the same thing: charities that support women and girls.

The festival also featured nine art installations by female artists, spanning from 1991 to 2026. A highlight piece was Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree from 1996, an installation that fuses art and manifestation. It invites participants to write a personal wish on a small paper tag and tie their tags to the branches of a tree, creating a communal beacon of dreams and hopes.

As music festivals continue to gain popularity, it is inspiring to see someone as young as Rodrigo create an alternative festival that directly benefits such an important cause and is still fun, high energy, and more empowering than other festivals.