Bonnaroo Music Festival: The Journey to Tennesee

The Bonnaroo Music Festival is one of the country’s best music festivals. The event is celebrating its 10^th “year of magic” and has released a great lineup.  Festival artists this year will include: Eminem, Arcade Fire, The Strokes, Lil Wayne, The Black Keys, Bassnectar, Beirut, Explosions in the Sky, Buffalo Springfield, and a variety of others.

Coachella, Southern California’s festival, is miniature in comparison to Bonaroo. If anyone is making the trek to Tennessee for this week of “magic,” you’re in for a real treat.

The festival will be held at Great Stage Park on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee. The festival runs for four days from Thursday June 9^th to Sunday June 12^th. Ticket prices are now at the highest “price level 4” which come out to a total of $249.50 plus any applicable fees. Tickets include festival admission, camping, and parking.

With such a large venue space the festival creators, Superfly Productions and AC Entertainment, provide an array of musical variety, activities, and attractions for festival goers. The main area of the festival lies in “Centeroo” which encloses most of the festival activity. This area is open 24 hours a day and encloses many different festival merchants, activities, and most of the festival’s musical acts.

The “What Stage” is the main stage of Bonnaroo and had a capacity of 100,00 viewers. The headlining acts each year traditionally play unopposed to any other acts on this stage each evening, which provides festival goers with the opportunity to actually see each and every headliner perform in adverse to picking and choosing over which headliners they would rather see perform.

There is also the “Which Stage” which is holds a capacity of 30,000, generally a late night show occurs here following the headlining acts. There are also the “This Tent, That Tent, and The Other Tents” which are areas for other musical acts and the home of the yearly “Superjam” which is a one-off combination of artists that perform at the festival. Other attractions include: the “Comedy Tent”, the “Solar State”, “Lunar Stage”, and the “Cinema Tent.”

There are various tent activities that are open to festival goers. One popular activity occurs in the “Silent Disco Tent,” where participants are allowed to dance in the early hours of the morning with synchronized headphones that are all connected with the DJ and distributed upon entrance; this allows participants to dance all night without disturbing nearby campers. A variety of art installation projects also provide attendees with the opportunity to create art on festival grounds. Other popular attractions include: the “Broo’ers festival” which features a variety of breweries from around the US, “Planet Roo” a host area for non-profit organizations that share information on healthy lifestyles and resource conservation, as well as, the “Splash-a-Roo” area which is home to a giant slip-n-slide and giant mushroom fountain. And of course, Bonnaroo provides attendees with showers, telephones, general stores, food, and shopping opportunities.

Four days of great music, a wide variety of attractions and activities create a great Bonnaroo experience, and the festival’s tenth year celebration is sure to be an amazing time. Comment below if you’re going and who you’re most excited to see!

For more information check out the festival’s website.

Photos by HarshLight and Jason Anfinsen via Flickr