The Coachella Music Festival is one the best pound-for-pound musical gluts in the country, attracting the best performers, old and new, from the hip-hop, indie, and alt-rock scenes. If Lollapalooza crafted the template, Coachella perfected it. Coachella 2011 runs from April 15-17. If you want to have a happy (and healthy) weekend, there are a few basic survival tips you need to keep in mind.

Are you ready for this year's Tribeca Film Festival? 2011 is the tenth anniversary of New York City's biggest and fastest-growing fete of local and international independent cinema, bringing in thousands of cineastes and celebrities from all over the world. This year's festival kicks off in with a Cameron Crowe documentary about Elton John and singer/songwriter Leon Russell and ends with a performance by John himself, but you don't have to be Sir Elton to get access to the Tribeca Film Festival's 88 feature-length and 61 short films – being a part of the fun is as easy as paying the price of a movie ticket.

Hundreds, if not thousands of musicians, from Louis Armstrong to Louie Prima have passed through the New Orleans music scene over the years, and there isn't another city in the country whose jazz heritage is as rich and vibrant. It's easy to think of jazz as a staid and mouldering tradition – it's certainly not a huge part of mainstream music consciousness anymore – but New Orleans' traditional jazz foundations mix with blues, hip-hop and indie rock in exciting and inventive ways that prove that jazz is not only alive and kicking, but finding a comfortable place amid its genre peers in the Crescent City.

When is Earth Day 2011? Since 1970, Earth Day has been held on April 22, which this year falls conveniently on a Friday on the fourth weekend of the month, but celebrations are taking place all over the world at different dates around actual Earth Day. During this time of environmental appreciation, it might seem antithetical to the ideals of Earth Day 2011 to talk about travel (especially air travel), but on the contrary, the holiday is the perfect time to think about the impact your travel has on the environment and what you, as a responsible citizen, might do about it.

The square is festooned with green, gold and purple bric-a-brac, a sprightly Basin City blues fills your ears, and the air is rich with the smell of spicy andouille sausage and seafood gumbo, but no, you're not in New Orleans – you're at Universal Studios' Mardi Gras in Orlando.