Beyoncé's Coachella performance wouldn't have been as special as a regular TV broadcast

Los Angeles Times

As a TV critic, Robert Lloyd saw Beyoncé's Coachella performance as something on par with a Super Bowl halftime performance or an Olympic opening ceremony. "Had this been an ordinary television broadcast, commercials would have preceded it for months; billboards would have told you when and where to tune in. You would have had to cover your ears and eyes in order not to know it was happening," he says. Instead, viewers watching the livestream were treated to "very much an emotional, visceral, virtually communal experience," he says, adding: "As it is, they will be watching Saturday's performance in 5,000 years if anyone is around to watch it and eyes are still a thing. But seeing it in real time, even if not in the real space, mattered. Far from the event, there was still a sense of occasion, of a shared moment in a shared space — and much of this had to do with the quality of the camerawork and the intelligence of the direction."