Bonnaroo experience always changing

One of the things Bonnaroo does better than most festivals is adapt, change and grow. They are constantly tweaking everything from crowd control to site layout.

When it became obvious to them weeks ago that ticket sales would be far lower than their usual 80,000 people, they went to work moving tents, fences and vendors closer to the stages to make everything feel full and energetic. Nothing kills a mood like a space that feels empty.

Very few people there this past weekend seemed to notice or care. Everything seemed perfectly normal, and the music was too good to complain about anything anyway.

When the f irst Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival was launched back in 2002, most people thought it was a terrible idea that would fail miserably. Very few people saw the logic in throwing a huge music festival on a farm in the middle of Tennessee in June.

Lots of people before 2002 had tried to re- create the magic of the Woodstock music festival in 1969, and most had failed because there are so many things that can go wrong. Things like low ticket sales, bad weather, an act that drops out. Not only was Bonnaroo asking people to travel to Tennessee, it was asking them to camp in a tent in an open field. And they wanted people to do it every year.

Where the organizers of the event were smarter than most is they booked bands with fans t hat would be likely to camp. Hippies, basically. The first two or three lineups were dominated by jam bands with loyal fan bases that travel the country to see them.

Bonnaroo proved that a music festival could work, and the result has been the creation of literally hundreds of new ones. Those have taken fans, and artists, away from Bonnaroo. It’s hard to know exactly why ticket sales were down, but the smart money says it’s a combination of competition, lineup and a significant rise in the price to attend. It’s tough for a guy going to school and working part- time to cough up the roughly $450 for a ticket.

But a lot of VIP tickets were sold and with the influx of capital from Live Nation, which bought a controlling interest in the event last year, officials say they are looking forward to the next 15 years.

Heading into the event last week, I did worry about how the low numbers would affect the festival. But other than the high heat and portable potties that got cleaned only once in five days, it was one of my favorite Bonnaroos, and I look forward to next year.

Barry Courter