Bonnaroo Canceled As Ida Swamps The Farm

“Due to the expectation of significant rain on The Farm from Hurricane Ida, and the knowledge that areas of our campgrounds will be rendered unusable, Mother Nature has forced us to reduce our camping capacity,” reads a statement on the Bonnaroo website. “We are offering a refund window so Bonnaroovians who no longer wish to attend can request full refunds across all ticket and accommodation types.”

Ticketholders can request refunds from the origin of purchase and may expect them to be processed within 30 days.

Bonnaroo announced its lineup, topped by headliners Foo Fighters, Lizzo and Tyler, The Creator back in March and expected some 80,000 fans — most of them campers — to spend the weekend on The Farm. 

Getting to Opening Day was not without its challenges. On Aug. 10, the festival announced it would require proof of COVID-19 vaccination or proof of a negative test, thanks to a nationwide surge of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations in recent weeks. 

Then Hurricane Ida, now downgraded to a tropical depression, continues to produce massive amounts of rain as it moves from the northern Gulf Coast, where it made landfall Aug. 29, to the Atlantic seaboard — and cutting a swath through Middle Tennessee.

Weather events have long wreaked havoc on major outdoor events, such as 2012’s Governors Ball (a.k.a. the “Mudball”) after Tropical Storm Andrea’s torrential rains drenched Randall’s Island. That same year’s Lollapalooza had to pay $350,000 when Grant Park’s Hutchinson Field had to be completely replaced following heavy rains. One report put GovBall’s expense at nearly $300,000 to repair 10 acres of the 24-acre park at 50 to 70 cents per square foot. At that rate, Bonnaroo’s massive fest footprint at 650 acres could cost as much as $19 million if the entire site had to be re-sodded.

However , Bonnaroo’s home, the Great Stage Park in Manchester, Tenn., affectionately referred to as “the Farm,” acts as basically the year-round home of Bonnaroo, otherwise largely unused. Preparing for the event is largely like erecting a full city, with only a few small structures and the main “What” stage permanently remaining on the site. Also accommodating camping fans, the event differs largely in preparation and maintenance from the urban city parks used by the likes of Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Outside Lands and others.

With artists sharing their disappointment, and some announcing last-minute club gigs in the area to still try to get a show in, agents and managers too are sharing their support for the event, which gives a huge platform for many artists and this year all the more important with fewer options and dates to perform.

“There’s such an enormous amount of work that goes into that festival, and I just know from talking with them in recent months just how important it was to them and how meaningful it became for that festival to happen,” says Wasserman Music agent Keith Levy, who represents Liz Cooper among others. “It’s just a really, really debilitating feeling to watch that much work come undone. So having gone through that for the past year and a half and having gone through a lot of that in the past three weeks, I know how much that hurts for the promoters and hurts for us. I think we’re all kind of grieving together that this thing that we love so much and we’re looking forward to is not happening. … But it’s just really sad. I mean, we you know, we thought we got through COVID and dealt enough for that to happen. It’s been sold out since they announced the new date. And here comes Hurricane Ida. You know, I mean, it just feels like we can’t win right now. There’s no doubt in my mind that they made the right decision despite the amount of pain that I’m sure they felt during and after that decision was so enormous. There’s no way they would have made that decision unless they knew it was the right thing to do.”

A hurricane bringing flash flood warnings is not just a run-of-the-mill storm, and Bonnaroo is not just any regular outdoor event. The decision to cancel the event, the first time it has done so in its history other than for 2020’s COVID shutdown, comes as major event producers try to limit risk at a time when cancellations, no-shows and other calamities are more common than ever, with smaller artist deposits becoming standard for festivals and artists looking into their own insurance policies. The event is produced by Live Nation, AC Entertainment and C3 Presents.

“We’re doing a lot of quotes now for tours and outdoor shows for artists who in the past haven’t traditionally looked at tour cancelation insurance,” says Paul Bassman, managing director at insurance company Higginbotham. “We now make sure it includes weather coverage for Live Nation and AEG shows. In the past, you didn’t really have to, because the promoter would still have to pay the full guarantee [in case of a weather event] but Live Nation and AEG aren’t covering the full guarantee any longer in most situations. “It’s a whole new area that we’re having to look at, and this is the first big cancellation that I know of,” Bassman adds. In the past most artist contracts had a ‘ready, willing and able’ clause in the contract that would obligate the promoter to pay the artist their full guarantee in the case of a weather cancelation. It is my understanding that Bonnaroo did not have this clause in the contract, so these artists would not receive their full guarantee if they didn’t have their own cancelation insurance that included adverse weather.” 

Over the past year and a half, the concert industry has grown used to rescheduling and pushing back events due to COVID, but weather events bring back the harsh reality of even the mundane being out of anyone’s control. The fact that Bonnaroo is one of the major calendar events in a regular year, let alone being one of the few big-stage opportunities for many artists this year, compounds the headache.

“We’ll see how it all shakes out, but I know they have everybody’s best interests and safety in mind (by deciding to cancel)” says artist manager Jonathan Shank of Terrapin Station entertainment. Among Shank’s music clients is Scarypoolparty, who was due to perform at Bonnaroo as well as at an exclusive onsite livestream from the newly launched Veeps House. “And I’m sure they’ll take care of the artists in the same way they were looking out for them and the fans by making this move. We’re confident that Live Nation is in the artist business and will continue to support artists.”

As the United States navigates its way through COVID, major events like Lollapalooza and Rolling Loud taking place and running smoothly are needed a step in the right direction while others are forced to cancel, postpone or reschedule. Competing events and companies are largely rooting for each other, and Bonnaroo’s cancellation is a buzz kill for the entire industry.

“I’m devastated, because I know there’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in Manchester, Tennessee, working for weeks and weeks, and the payoff for anyone working the festival is the festival happening,” says Denny Young, whose Elevation Festivals just put on two festivals in Ohio attracting about 45,000 attendees at Wonderstruck in Cleveland and WonderBus in Columbus. “They’re going to be tearing down all of their infrastructure probably immediately and certainly going through the weekend, and based on the weather forecast it’s going to be gorgeous. The pit in their stomachs has got to be deep, and for that I feel awful.”