Music festival logistics take center stage

Every June for the last 15 years, I’ve made the pilgrimage to Great Stage Park in Manchester, Tennessee, for the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. I go for work — no, seriously — but it’s become such a part of my life that I co-host a podcast at thewhatpodcast.com, where we talk about it almost year-round.

The podcast was originally conceived to talk about the 2018 lineup, which featured a bunch of acts we knew nothing about. But we quickly discovered that people like talking about the logistics of putting on a giant festival almost as much as they like talking about a favorite band.

So when the same organizers decided to put the Exit 111 Festival on The Farm, as the site is called, I had to see it. The Farm, I mean. I didn’t stick around for the music. Not because it wasn’t a good lineup; I just had other things to do and I’ve seen most of the acts on the bill.

Exit 111 was last weekend and it featured a power-packed lineup of rock, hard rock and metal bands including Def Leppard, ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Guns N’ Roses and many more.

Both Exit 111 and Bonnaroo feature camping as a component. Actually, it’s a huge component that can be a positive or a negative for some people. It’s a commitment, but it also makes for an immersive experience.

While the June festival typically seems like the hottest place on Earth each year, this past weekend was relatively cool during the day and cold at night.

The biggest difference between the two was size and scale. While Bonnaroo caps out at about 80,000 people, Exit 111 drew closer to an estimated 25,000, so much of the site was fenced off. The fountain was in the fenced area and wasn’t even turned on, for example.

It was a fairly bare-bones event with three stages, plenty of food and drink vending and a Paranormal Cirque experience. By nearly all accounts, those who went loved it.

Speaking of the logistics of running a large festival, it will be interesting and fun to see what Riverbend 2020 looks like with the announcement last week that the folks at Songbirds Guitar Museum would now be working with the Friends of the Festival staff.

It’s too early to even speculate, but I anticipate the changes will be significant. First and foremost, the staff needs to determine exactly what its mission is, and what the user experience needs to be.

And it needs to all happen fairly quickly.

Barry Courter