Bonnaroo

Bonnaroo
Genre	Indie rock, Jam bands, Jazz, Americana, Bluegrass, Country, Folk, Gospel, Alternative rock, Hip hop, Reggae, Metal, Electronica, Funk, R&B, Stoner Rock
Dates	June 13–16, 2013
Location(s)	Great Stage Park, Manchester, Tennessee, USA
Years active	2002–present
Website	Official website

The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is an annual four-day music festival created and produced by Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment, held at Great Stage Park on a 700-acre (2.8 km²) farm in Manchester, Tennessee, USA. It hosted its eleventh annual event June 7–10, 2012. The main attractions of the festival are the multiple stages of live music, featuring a diverse array of musical styles including indie rock, world music, hip hop, jazz, americana, bluegrass, country music, folk, gospel, reggae, electronica, and other alternative music. The festival began with a primary focus on jam bands and folk rock; it has diversified greatly in recent years but continues to pay tribute to its roots. Past notable acts include Radiohead, Phish, Stevie Wonder, The White Stripes, Neil Young, Pearl Jam, Tom Petty, The Dead, The Allman Brothers Band, James Brown, Wilco, Bon Iver, The Flaming Lips, Willie Nelson, Jay-Z, Eminem, Bob Dylan, The Black Keys, Dave Matthews Band, Buffalo Springfield, Arcade Fire, The Strokes, The Black Crowes, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bruce Springsteen, Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails, and Widespread Panic. The festival features craftsmen and artisans selling unique products, food and drink vendors, a comedy tent, silent disco, cinema tent, and ferris wheel.

The festival was named one of the "50 Moments That Changed Rock & Roll" by Rolling Stone magazine. and "Festival of the Decade" by Consequence of Sound and among the 10 Best Festivals by GQ Magazine.

History

The word Bonnaroo, popularized by New Orleans R&B singer Dr. John with his 1974 album Desitively Bonnaroo, means "a really good time." It is a Ninth Ward slang construction taken from the French "bon" meaning "good," and "rue" from the French "street," translating to "the best on the streets." The name was chosen both for its literal meaning and to honor the rich Louisiana music tradition.

The first Bonnaroo took place in 2002 and took inspiration from music festivals in the 1990s, including those put on by the band Phish, Coachella and Glastonbury. With no traditional advertising, the festival sold out in nearly two weeks. By 2003, the festival had been named by Rolling Stone as one of the top 50 moments in rock & roll. Comedy acts such as Jim Breuer were first added in 2005. In 2007, Bonnaroo purchased the land for the festival, creating Great Stage Park with all of its iconic features. A permanent main stage was installed in 2010.

Economy

On January 10, 2007, Bonnaroo organizers Superfly Productions purchased a major portion of the site where the annual music festival is held. The purchase of 530 acres (2.1 km²) encompassed all of the performance areas and much of the camping and parking area used for the annual festival; the festival will continue to lease another 250 acres (1.0 km²) that currently serve as additional parking and camping. Since its inception, Bonnaroo has contributed more than $1 million directly to Coffee County organizations. In addition to annual charitable contributions, the festival's activities provide annual revenue to the county. Measured in a 2005 study, the economic impact of the event on Coffee County was more than $14 million in business revenues and more than $4 million in personal income. The Bonnaroo music festival makes most of its income from the fans.

Environmentalism

Bonnaroo promotes itself as a sustainable festival. As a reward for sending a letter to a legislator in support of climate change legislation, the Natural Resources Defense Council gave 17 free downloads from various Bonnaroo artists. A Greener Festival has recognized Bonnaroo's efforts for the past three years. There is a defined process, which includes a self-evaluation and an audit from Greener Festival auditors during Bonnaroo.

Accolades

In 2008, it was named "Best Festival" by Rolling Stone magazine, calling it "the ultimate over-the-top summer festival."

One of “50 moments that changed rock & roll” – Rolling Stone

“Bonnaroo has revolutionized the modern rock festival” – The New York Times

“Festival of the Year” – Pollstar

“Best festival of the summer” – SPIN

“The culmination of a musical movement” – USA Today

“The concert event of the summer” – USA Today

“Music and subculture melted together into a pot of creative bubbling energy” – CNN

“Bonnaroo: Three days of musical history in the making” - AP

Venues

The official venues located at Bonnaroo often change from year to year. The following are a few of the more permanent venues.

Which Stage at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, TN.

• Centeroo - The Central area of Bonnaroo. Serviced by two main entrances, nearly all of the festival activity is enclosed in this area. Various merchants and activities supplement the plethora of music related activities located within Centeroo. While Centeroo is open 24 hours a day, musical artists generally only play from noon until the evening, followed by the unopposed headlining act. Afterwards, there are late-night sets, usually running from midnight until the early morning, sometimes as late as 5 or 6 AM.
• What Stage - The main stage of the festival is also the largest. What Stage is open from approximately noon until midnight (late night sets usually over by 3am). Traditionally, the headlining act each day will play on the What Stage with no other acts performing on any other stages.
• Which Stage - The second stage, Which Stage, is generally one of the last stages to finish before the headlining act each night. After the headlining act performs, a late night show generally follows here.
• This Tent, That Tent, and The Other Tent - These three tents serve as a combined tertiary tier for musical performances. Late night shows also generally occur in all three of these venues, along with the yearly Superjam, a one-off combination of various musicians performing at the festival.
• Comedy Tent - This tent is reserved strictly for comedy acts, such as stand up comedians.

Various other small tents and stages also exist, such as the Solar Stage, Lunar Stage, Sonic Stage, and the Cinema tent. See the Bonnaroo website for further details on these venues.

Facilities

Camping space and parking are included in the Bonnaroo ticket price but are limited to the patron's vehicle and the space immediately behind the vehicle. Patrons are directed to a parking space by festival staff and parking and camp set up are monitored to ensure adequate open lanes remain through the campgrounds. Some creative campers work together to command more space than the usual area behind the car, and circus-like tents pop up here and there with numerous people sharing a large communal "chill tent" and cooking area and smaller tents branching off in several directions. (Festival organizers also offer "Groop Camping" in a designated area of the farm, a VIP option offering more space and other benefits, RV areas, and a large tent-only area.) A more typical experience is the small site occupied by two or three campers with a tent and a shade canopy, leaving enough room for folding chairs and cooler. Within walking distance of all Bonnaroo campsites are ranks of portable (not flushing) toilets which are cleaned approximately once per day during the festival by roving pumper trucks and their crews. Close camping proximity to the portable toilets has been a mixed blessing: good when the drinks are flowing and the bladder calling but bad when the pumper trucks come and stir the smells as they may do at any hour of the day or night. Also within walking distance are watering stations where Bonnaroovians may fill water jugs or wash publicly. The portable toilets and watering stations are found throughout the general admission campgrounds and in Centeroo. Also available to campers are pay showers at each of the pods - see "Activities." Patrons are allowed to bring portable generators of a limited size but there is otherwise no access to electricity at the Bonnaroo campsites.

Activities

Some graffiti by Nashville artist Ryan McCauley on the Graffiti Wall, which separates Centeroo from the campsites.

Available to the Bonnaroo public throughout the week are various activity tents. These tents become most popular with the night crowd, with such activities set up as The Silent Disco tent and several other club or bar-themed venues. In the Silent Disco, each person upon entering the tent is given a set of headphones that syncs with the DJ and the music, so everyone is listening to the same song through the headphones while appearing from the outside to be dancing to no music at all. Other activities include the Comedy Tent where comedians from Mike Birbiglia to Flight of the Conchords have performed. The Cinema tent, showing a variety of mainstream and independent movies, is also popular as it is one of the air conditioned tents, and the Broo’ers Festival tent is a popular attraction featuring a variety of breweries from all over the United States. Outside the big tents, Planet Roo hosts a variety of non-profit organizations sharing information on healthy lifestyles and resource conservation, and Splash-a-Roo (a giant slip-n-slide area) and a giant mushroom fountain provide a practical way to beat the heat. Bonnaroo creators designated the wall surrounding Centeroo, colloquially called "the Graffiti Wall", as a place for street artists to paint whatever they feel like painting.

Outside the music venue, in the packed campgrounds known to Bonnaroovians as Tent City, there are also about 11 pods set up by festival organizers with activities and services for the campers. Each pod has an information and medical booth and a community art project. Often these are joint projects between invited artists and the campers themselves: past festival pods have featured birdhouse construction and decorating, stretched canvas and paints open to anyone with a message or picture in his or her mind, a giant Lite Brite-like panel, and huge frames and raw clay which Bonnaroovians shaped and moulded to their taste. Some of the art installations are finished prior to the festival and have offered visitors an opportunity to walk through a bamboo forest 15 to 20 degrees cooler than the surrounding farm and to peer through a series of large kaleidoscopes. In addition to information, medical services and an art project, each pod offers public showers for $7 each.

Activities like these, along with great food vendors and unique shopping, provide an easy and fun way to hang around the festival in between music performances. In 2009, Bonnaroo featured the Bungaloo, a community art project that invited festival goers to paint a small tile that was then affixed to 10 foot water drops suspended between The Other Tent and This Tent. For each tile painted, the festival-goer could vote for the charity of their choice. Bungaloo, a new online paint company, made a $1000 donation to the charity with the most votes.

Weather

Bonnaroo is held in June in Middle Tennessee, and it is not unusual for temperatures to reach the 90's in the daytime and dip into the 70's at night. High humidity is a given. Rain should be expected; severe thunderstorms are not uncommon, and tornadoes are possible year-round in Tennessee, though none has ever hit the campgrounds during the festival. Most information sources recommend attendees bring a sun-hat, sweater or jacket, rain poncho, and a pair of boots in addition to shorts, bikinis and sandals. Heat exhaustion and dehydration are frequent complaints among Bonnaroovians and have contributed to fatalities at past Bonnaroos. They are easy to avoid, however, by drinking plenty of water, avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, and limiting time in the sun. Sun burn is another common ailment at Bonnaroo - but is also easily avoided through liberal application of sun-screen. Bonnaroo veterans bring shade tents and camp fans and plenty of water or at least a container that can be filled at one of several public water outlets. When the weather is dry, Bonnaroo's gravel and dirt roads generate clouds of dust. Bonnaroovians often fashion handkerchief masks to filter the dust before breathing it. Many Bonnaroovians go barefoot for the weekend, and the hardcore barefoot music fans much prefer the dust to the alternative of walking around on hot asphalt or concrete.

Security

Bonnaroo is patrolled by several levels of security and numerous public and private organizations with the same priority: ensuring the safety of the 80,000 or more music fans who make the festival what it is, as well as the 7,500 or so locals who call Manchester home year-round. Off-site and around festival entrances there is a large presence of Tennessee Highway Patrol, Manchester Police and Coffee County Sheriffs Department personnel directing traffic and maintaining order. Upon entering the festival grounds attendees and their cars are searched by festival volunteers but might also be pulled out of line and searched by the Coffee County deputies or special drug task forces. While the volunteers seem to focus on the "no list" publicized on the official Bonnaroo Website and including such items as glass containers, pets, firearms, fire-works and nitrous oxide tanks, the police seem to search primarily for drugs and have prevented marijuana, LSD and "magic mushrooms," among other drugs, from entering the site.

On-site security features teams on golf carts who respond to emergencies as they arise across the festival grounds. There are also dozens of mounted security officers working in pairs and riding the festival campgrounds 24 hours a day. The "Bonnaroo Mounties" watch closely for signs of tent burglary - not uncommon at Bonnaroo, though this is not a festival where you must nail everything down lest it be stolen. They are also on the lookout for assault and illegal vending by unregistered vendors. Nonetheless, illicit vending does occur at Bonnaroo, with such items as bootleg posters, marijuana and mushrooms readily available. Many Bonnaroovians have heard the marijuana salesman's refrain, "sticky nugs," echoing around the campground at one time or another. The quality of the marijuana is reportedly excellent, however, the quality of the mushrooms has varied from very high to more or less bunk.

Under cover police have also been known to roam the Bonnaroo grounds attempting to buy drugs and bust illicit dealers. In the past, the focus has been on prescription painkillers which are more likely to kill attendees than mushrooms or marijuana. However, the police do not turn their backs on dealing of the softer drugs and pot dealers are busted every year.

Each time a festival patron enters Centeroo from the campgrounds he or she is subject to search by volunteer security workers whose efforts range from a look and a wave to thorough pat-downs and searches of backpacks, purses, etc. Festival patrons can speed entry onto the site for themselves and others by limiting the number of items they carry into Centeroo and paying attention to the published "no list." Prohibited items may be confiscated. Seldom is anyone prosecuted when searches uncover marijuana paraphernalia or small stashes - but it is possible. While marijuana use is a fact of life at Bonnaroo (and in fact vendors set up every year offering thousands of water bongs and small glass pipes for sale) marijuana remains illegal in any form in Tennessee, and the state has not yet recognized medical marijuana and will not honor out of state medical marijuana cards.

Christian Outreach

One unique aspect of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is the annual effort by local and regional Baptists to reach out to festival attendees with free refreshments and entertainment in the "More Than Music" tent. On a site near the edge of the Bonnaroo farm (close to Pod 9 and just off Brushy Branch Road) the "More Than Music" tent offers shade and fans, sweet iced tea, water, snacks and other comforts to anyone who walks in. Specializing in a soft-sell approach to proselytizing, the hosts have offered art demonstrations and regular worship services as well as free access to computers and the Internet in an effort to spread the love of God. Forgot your toothbrush or deodorant? Ask the Bonnaroo Baptists at the "More Than Music" tent. The "More Than Music" effort has its origins in the long traffic jams and often-chaotic scene which broke out around early Bonnaroos when thousands more fans showed up than local authorities had anticipated. Local church-goers stepped up to car windows with bottles of water, and have not stopped being a part of Bonnaroo since.

So called Christian outreach has also generated controversy at Bonnaroo: the event has been picketed by people posing as Christians with signs condemning the Bonnaroovians to hell, etc. The pickets have been met by sneering counter protests and sparked arguments generating unwanted stress and trouble for the already busy Bonnaroo security staff.

Some well-meaning organizations have been first allowed and then asked not to come back to Bonnaroo. Super Bowl Ministries is one such organization. A volunteer with that group was not aware of any incident that prompted the move, but said Bonnaroo asked Super Bowl Ministries not to return after 2011.

Bonnaroo Music Festival by year

• 2012 Bonnaroo Music Festival
• 2011 Bonnaroo Music Festival
• 2010 Bonnaroo Music Festival
• 2009 Bonnaroo Music Festival
• 2008 Bonnaroo Music Festival
• 2007 Bonnaroo Music Festival
• 2006 Bonnaroo Music Festival
• 2005 Bonnaroo Music Festival
• 2004 Bonnaroo Music Festival
• 2003 Bonnaroo Music Festival
• 2002 Bonnaroo Music Festival

External links

• Bonnaroo.com Official Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival website
• GreatStagePark.com Official Site of Bonnaroo Property
• Inforoo.com The Unofficial Bonnaroo Message Board
• BehindTheRoo.com A Bonnaroo 2011 Documentary
• Survival Guide Leo's Unofficial Bonnaroo Survival Guide
• Faces of Bonnaroo: 2009 @ Swigged!
• How Do You Roo? A Survivor's Pocket Guide to Bonnaroo (Lulu, 2010) The first (and only) unofficial guidebook to the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival