BBC Big Weekend coverage not quite keeping pace with what's possible

Following YouTube’s best ever streaming coverage of Coachella, it would have been nice to see the BBC match its ambition. Of course in some areas the BBC coverage was infinitely superior, but the Beeb is still not really getting into social media, and the usually brilliant inclusions of setlists were glaringly absent this year.

I also felt that YouTube’s streaming / interface was smoother and smarter. When viewing the BBC feed it dropped out a few times and needed a browser refresh to re-establish which never happened with YouTube’s Coachella. Switching between feeds on YouTube was slick and effortless, whilst the BBC interface was noticably laggy. Finally, the BBC did not have an ’Artists on now and coming up next panel’ or ’Lineup / Agenda’ panel on the same page - so you had to flit between pages to get a proper sense of what was going on.

The BBC excels though in providing Video Highlights on its iPlayer which allows you to watch most of what went down - in any order.

I caught the following acts - both live and on-demand:

• alt-J
• B. Traits
• Bruno Mars
• Calvin Harris
• Chase and Status
• Disclosure
• Dizzee Rascal
• DJ Fresh
• Ellie Goulding
• Haim
• Iggy Azalea
• Jessie Ware
• Katy B
• Kendrick Lamar
• Labrinth
• Little Mix
• Pete Tong
• Rita Ora
• Rudimental
• The Saturdays

I particularly enjoyed Disclosure, Iggy Azalea, Katy B, Kendrik Lamar and Rudimental - as well as B. Traits’ DJ set.