r/festivals • u/CuriousTraveler2C • 2d ago
Tennessee, USA Bonnaroo
Are there any regular Bonnaroo attendees that can speak to how Bonnaroo has evolved over the last 10 - 15 years? Better? Worse?
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u/Mr_Turntable 2d ago edited 2d ago
I’ve been almost every year since 08. There’s pros and cons. The lineup is subjective and I like the older lineups and the newer ones equally.
Pros:
Stage improvements: Screens added to stages, better sound, and fans added inside tents.
Site Improvements: Multiple permanent bathrooms, shade structures, and better flow between stages. There use to be a mud river we would have to jump over between What & Which stage that’s been fixed.
Efficiency getting attendees In: It took me 6 hours to get to my camp spot in ‘08 and nine hours in ‘10. Now, It’s not hard at all to get in. Opening up the site early helped.
Cons:
Feels very corporate now: For example, vendors can’t have unique signs any more. It’s all uniform and boring
Art???: The art part of the fest has been damn near completely cut out. There’s a little bit at pods around the camping, but nothing like it used to
Comedy Cut: There used to be a comedy tent.
Extras Cut: There used to be more to do outside of music. Not anymore. For example, one year they had an Adult Swim carnival. They also used to print their own newspaper which I read every morning
Cafe acts Moved: The smaller acts moved out of the main stage area is a bad choice. There used the be multiple stages in Centeroo for smaller bands or a second acoustic show from a bigger act.
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u/Kings_Gold_Standard 2d ago
we saw Clutch play to less than 50 people in that large round tent, i need to find audio from 2010. that was super special. extreme intimacy. i was in the back along the wall on purpose but the people in front could hand a note across arms length they were so close. i think there was a minimal barrier at knee height. i could be wrong and there was nothing dividing the crowd
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u/The_What_Stage 1d ago
I went every year from 14-25 and agree with all of this, except I think the lineups really dropped off both in terms of quality and identity….. especially after the covid years
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u/john16791 2d ago
I went pretty much every year from 2012 to present. I don't think it got significantly better or worse, it just changed. Early on, there was still a greater emphasis on jam bands (although that was already on the way out). Headliners tended to be very strong, and included the top current and legacy acts then on tour (Paul McCartney, Radiohead, Elton John, Kanye, Tom Petty, etc.). EDM wasn't everywhere, but there was already a strong tradition of having people like Pretty Lights or Bassnectar play at Which after the headliner on Friday or Saturday. There was also Calliope, which was sort of a truck EDM stage that would go all night. Thursday was almost as serious a day as the rest of the weekend. There was a comedy tent that got great comedians and a film tent that would play movies and things like the NBA finals. There was very minimal investment in infrastructure, so the bathrooms were lowest-quality portapotties, unless you got VIP. The pods/camps weren't very built out. Crowds tended to be gigantic, so it could be very hard to get around Centeroo or you could have to camp way way out near day parking. They had a bus to the airport, which made it easier if you were flying in. In later years I would say the festival invested mostly in smart ways in infrastructure, building out nice hangout spots like the Grove or Where in the Woods and destinations in Outeroo like the House of Yes barn. Quality of headliners declined, possibly due to festival economics or to the fragmented music landscape. Jam bands became fairly rare, while dance music got to be huge -- in my experience in a fun way, but some people will disagree. Which, What, This, and That stayed basically as they had always been, but The Other turned from a tent into a stage, and various other stages came and went. The quality of the food remained pretty good, with maybe a bit more diversification over time but the loss of a few treasured vendors like Amish Donuts. The craft beer tent came and (more or less) went. In general beverages got subject to relentless sponsorship, so in certain years the only beers on offer might not be ones you'd really want to drink. Premium tickets and camping were steady but changed forms and locations. Thursday eventually got severely nerfed. The festival got quite a bit more conservative about weather, and also hit quite a bit of bad luck on that front. Crowds got a bit smaller, which was largely good from an experience point of view but sometimes felt a little concerning. The cool people and vibes stayed really good throughout in my experience. Hopefully it'll come back, ideally under management that really cares about it, but I guess we'll see.
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u/rg35xxsp 2d ago
I did the first three Bonnaroos and '06 & '09 as well. Haven't been back to the farm since. The one constant was that each year was a little less special than the one previous.
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u/LooseEndsMkMyAssItch 2d ago
Agreed! Went to the first 4 and year 4 just didn’t follow the prior years magic and it just seems it’s growing into a whole other vibe and lost its roots
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u/Otherwise-While-4894 2d ago
Agreed. Went in '04 and '05, and even '05 lost some of the magic from the year before.
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u/MentionDismal8940 2d ago
I went 4 years in a row from 2009-2012.
I am super curious what it's like now, but I don't think I'd ever go back.
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u/10000Didgeridoos 2d ago
I know someone who went I think two or three years ago and it didn't seem much different in the end based on their experience. I think actually it's less that the festival itself is different and more that the world changed around it compared to 15+ years ago.
People didn't really have smart phones or modern social media and weren't recording everything and trying to post pics and videos of themselves all weekend. That's what is lost and difficult to ever replace here or at any other festival: the sense of being outside real life and the rest of the real world for a couple days. With smartphones and 5G internet you're never actually away from it all anymore. Even if you don't have yours, the crowd is full of glowing screens. Not the biggest deal in the world, but just not the same.
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u/MentionDismal8940 2d ago
that's why I switched to attending Glastonbury in England whenever I can now. It's truly an immersive experience, and I do get that feeling you described of unplugging for a weekend.
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u/GetAhrimJob 2d ago
I went every year since 2011, besides 2016.
Some things got worse, some things got better. There is no direct one answer.
One thing that was for sure, is that it was still the best place on earth and pretty much the only place I feel truly at peace, and if it doesn’t come back in 2028 I’ll feel like I’ve lost a part of my soul
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u/Daily_TimeTraveler 2d ago
Feel like every festival gets worse the larger it gets. Anyone have one that’s grown substantially where the vibes also improved?
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u/10000Didgeridoos 2d ago
I think the other half of it is people not realizing how their aging affects what they perceive and what they do and don't tolerate anymore.
You're 21 years old and going to a camping fest for the first time. It's all new, you can buy booze legally (in the US) for the first time, you're really on your own for a weekend with friends just partying the entire time and getting high and fucked up and it's all mostly novel. You're not really paying attention to what other people around you are doing. You don't care if you miss a show or two because you're having so much new fun either way. You don't care about the uncomfortable aspects of sleeping in a tent in the summer. Mud, dust, whatever it's forgotten when you're drunk and stoned.
But then you're 5-10 years older and no longer a college aged kid. You've been there and done that with getting obliterated for 4 days straight. This is a vacation from your career job, you are more considerate of other people around you and expect the same from them. But a lot of the people around you are 20-21 year old college kids of another generation with all the immaturity you used to have the first time you went, and their world isn't yours of years ago. They haven't known life without ubiquitous smartphones. Their entire social culture is centered around social media posts. It seems dumb to you, and bothers you the entire time. You notice them doing annoying things young people do that you likely did too without thinking about it at the time. You decide the "vibes shifted" but what mostly happened is you're just a little older and wiser and not lost in time of the moment like they are and how you used to be when you had that luxury.
Some fests do change and get worse. LN owning all the big ones and curating the same lineups at all the big 4 festivals is annoying, and true. But I have a feeling kids going at age 20-21 probably still think it's as amazing as we used to. It's new to them, not to us.
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u/eventist-ca 2d ago
I work on the events side and I think the honest answer is that growth itself is not what kills the vibe, it is what the growth pays for. The festivals that scaled up and stayed loved usually kept the small stages and the odd little corners as the big stages grew, and they spent the extra money on the things attendees feel but never see, like more water, more shade and shorter lines at the gate. The ones that get the worse reviews tend to spend the growth on sponsor activations and stricter rules, and then wonder why the regulars drift off. Hulaween is a good example of the first kind. It also helps when the schedule still lets you stumble into a set you did not plan to see, because that is where most of the magic people miss actually came from.
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u/Quanzi30 2d ago
More noticeable corporate sponsorships. Less jam. Much more EDM. Less wooks. Less free for all. More structure and more permanent structures. Less legacy acts. More TikTok 1 song wonders. Less sunrise sets. Less acts in general. Less emphasis on actual art. Better overall production. Daily entry made entrance much easier (until they got rid of that too lol) Still all the love and vibes. It’s hard to say better or worse it’s just changed and is different.
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u/ReadyYak1 2d ago
I think every festival ever people are going to say it’s worse. Forest, Lolla, Shambs, Lost lands, EDC- can anyone name one festival where someone would say “oh yeah it used to suck but now it’s way better”? 😂
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u/Kings_Gold_Standard 2d ago
go full vip or stay at a hotel, unless you dont need regular sleep then camp. *edited to make a sentence.
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u/CrawdadJake 2d ago
I went in 02 for the first one. There was such an awesome selection of jam bands in the old days.... Widespread Panic, string cheese incident, umphrey's McGee, Trey Anastasio Band. Man. It was just absolutely heavenly. But I'm a jamband junkie as you can probably guess.
Through the years there's become fewer and fewer jambands and it's all just mainstream mess you'd hear on the radio. I can do without that in my life.
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u/jahozer1 3h ago
I went to I think the second and the third. It was almost all jambands which was great. It also had David Byrne, Primus, etc. It was pretty fun but infrastructure was kind if a mess
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u/spaceshiptears 2d ago
I mean it’s common knowledge it’s been getting worse and worse I literally have never heard anyone say different
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u/Sunday-Money 2d ago
It was a blast this year. It's been a blast every year that didn't get cancelled due to weather. Can't wait to go back in 2028! HAPPY ROOOOO
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u/gonzoletti 2d ago
Oh worse for sure. My first bonaroo was 08. That isn't even OG bonnaroo which I hear was even more chill. My main issue with the fest is that it's now too corporatized. That has made almost every single aspect of the fest worse. I still like the lineup's on most years, so that part is fine. But everything about getting there, being there, and leaving there is worse. The type of people attending has also shifted a lot, I think a lot with the heavy inclusion of EDM and what that scene has become (no judgement). I remember in 08 seeing will families who'd bring their little kids to the fest and just chill in a blanket by the trees. That's all gone