Bonnaroo Music Festival
Are you ready to ROCK YOUR FACE OFF??? Well you’ve come to the right place. Now let’s get down and dirty about Bonnaroo. For those of you who have absolutely no idea what Bonnaroo is, let me explain. Bonnaroo is a huge music festival that is hosted in Manchester, Tennessee each year. Someone had told us it was like the Woodstock of our generation. Not sure about that comparison but it sounded fun to us. I will say that it did have some common themes of Woodstock. Live music, got it. Tons of half naked people, got it. Drugs and alcohol, got it. So here’s how Bonnaroo works: you buy tickets, you travel there, you jam!
**Side note**- I cannot specify this enough, buy your tickets early and save money! Trust me. You are going to be spending enough money while you are there, so try and prepare! (we bought ours like two months ahead of time and paid the heavy price tag that came with it). If you are interested for more information go check out Bonnaroo here for yourself!
There are several different types of tickets available so it is up to you what you want. Long story short, there are general admission tickets and fancy VIP tickets. You can read on the Bonnaroo website and check out the differences to buy whichever you prefer. We opted for the General Admission with Car Camping as our parking option. For reference, it came out to be around $600-700 for the two of us. But keep in mind here, had we bought sooner we probably could have saved a few hundred. Once the time came, we packed up our car and drove to Manchester and awaited our turn to go through a security check. Be warned they do make you get out of your car and they go through it a bit, just a heads up.
Once you go through the check, you will be directed to where you will be parking. For our trip since we opted for car camping, we bypassed the normal parking lot. The bros directed us to where all our fellow campers would be too. When we arrived it was about midday and we were probably in the 800-900 range I would guess. I dunno man, but there were cars, tents, and people everywhere already and this was only day 1. Since this was our first time being a fellow roo, we kind of sat there for a second not knowing what to do. We looked around to see what everyone else was doing and went from there. Basically once you park (if you and your crew will be camping), you set up your “home away from home,” and go from there.
Since we were both in grad school at the time, sadly we had to do homework on the first day. Luckily, there weren't any bands or artists that we were super keen on seeing so it worked out. That being said let me warn you now, I was LIVID on our first day at Bonnaroo. Long story short, we needed WiFi and there was no WiFi (it was down). We were going to go to Starbucks to bum some WiFi, however we found out you can't leave on day one or you will lose your spot. Were advised there was a shuttle bus that left every 30 minutes from the site on the opposite side of the festival. There was no bus. No employees knew this except one jerk-off that we ran into two hours later. By 9 pm we found some WiFi near our canteen and got to work. I was mad because every single employee we ran into told us there was a bus and kept sending us all over the place. Plus there was the deadline of midnight for homework, Cinderella style. Anyways, we finished our assignments and were super tired by the end of day one.
Fangirling so hard to Paramore!
Just so no one else makes the same mistake we did. The buses are no longer an option. They did that the prior years. It now consists of this guy at the very edge of the festival, offering rides for cash. We didn't have any cash when we found him- so we decided against it. So if you need to leave for any reason on day one, save it for the next day. You are allowed to leave after day one so don't worry. Also, once you do leave there is a perfectly decent Walmart nearby if you need to buy new shoes that don't murder your feet, like I had to. Also another word of advice, maybe try and get your homework done before going to a festival? Unfortunately we weren't able to finish, so we had to make it work. But if you are in school- don't do what we did. It can get very tricky trying to concentrate on writing a paper. Especially when you have a few dozen bruh-mens next to you chugging beers while yelling. The choice is yours, but it isn't the greatest.
Day two of Bonnaroo was like night and day forreal. Plus it was my birthday so yay! After the first crap night, the rest of our time was fantastic! Although for us it was a homework weekend, we were so busy having a blast. We saw so many artists, met so many cool people, and even got to witness a wedding! While you are there I would recommend you download the Bonnaroo app. It allows you to check the set list throughout the day and also what stages they are at. Having the app was super handy especially when you are trying to navigate through thousands of people. You should also get your hands on a Bonnaroo map. There are signs throughout the festival but having a map is so much easier.
Bonnaroo was such an amazing experience and I would recommend it to anyone. Especially those of you who are interested in seeing a lot of different bands and artists all at once. Throughout the festival there are tons of food and market stalls so be sure to check them out. But be warned, if you aren't made out of money your budget can be blown pretty quickly. Most food plates averaged $8-$10 per plus drinks were up there. Although some of the prices were outrageous to us, we did try a lot and were glad. Shout out to the Indian food stall we stumbled upon, the food was incredible! I wish we had only been eating food from that beautiful woman, but sadly we only discovered it at the last second.
So the main takeaways from Bonnaroo:
Yes there are showers and yes you have to pay for them. Word for the wise: if you shower between 10pm-2am there is NO line and it's half off. Just saying...
Great music, different styles all over the place. So there is something for everyone.
People are very friendly
Free water stations throughout the park. (which you will appreciate when it's 100 degrees outside).
Bring a water bottle and something to keep you cool. The weather is smoldering lava and you are there to melt. We bought these and they probably saved us from overheating.