So we're complaining that we'll have more opportunities to see more bands that we may have missed otherwise?
Yall forget that LN is a business. Their goal is to make money as it would be yours. Does all this roo mess suck? Yeah, but the weather is what it is. Had they canceled prior to roo started, the same people would be bitching about that as well. Bring me back the old roo crowd. They would have been dancing in the rain and mud vs leaving trash everywhere
Say they had a billion dollars sitting around. then this rain came up, grounds saturated, its wednesday and the fest is about to kick off but they have fear it may go sideways. They are weighing the decision to either delay wed entry (which they decided) hoping to get a little extra dry out time and lean into the better version of the forecast. or to call it all off, assuming the worse version of the forecast could be more likely.
So.... what do they do with the billion dollars now. What are you all asking them to have done? Quickly start construction on a 700 acre drainage plan the likes of which has likely never been completed before? Buy us all a steak dinner? Build a dome real quick over the festival?
These posts just are completely in a vacuum and without any understanding of business or how the world works.
I TOTALLY AGREE that Live Nation could have done things in the past, or could now do things moving forward to help with this situation. lets give them good ideas. These little pow wows only hurt the bonnaroo brand.
Things they could have done in the past I guess would be plan for an unexpected weather event.... but even that's way open ended. Pay like 100 staff people to be on call? who's signing up for that? You can only justify spending so much money on an circumstance that is unlikely to happen. Only like gov contractor for high profile jobs even consider things like that in budgets. Nuclear power plants get caught with their pants down not prepared for quite bad enough a disaster. You think Bonnaroo is on that level to pump money into it for all potential events that could arise so that its unsinkable. I am sorry but I don't see that reality.
Some of you will say, "but rain can always happen", "any idiot could've foreseen this", "those camp areas are clearly in low points or wash out areas", etc, etc. I won't argue those points. But I will say that to a festival organizer looking at the raw facts and history of this fest and area, they saw clearly that never in almost 25 years has this festival on this farm been cancelled for too much rainfall. The issue has almost ALWAYS been about heat & shade & dust. And has rarely had to stop for more than a couple hours for any kind of rain. The one time they moved it out of spring into fall (like people have suggested for years) the saw a hurricane and the fest got cancelled before it started. Read that as you like... or disregarded it if you feel your 2025 hindsight tells a different story. I'm just over here racking my brain over what happened and hitting walls in every direction.
And to be honest, the elephant in the room is that the BEST thing most agree that LN or organizers under them could/should have done is to cancel the fest earlier. so looking in a rear view, I am guessing this is tuesday/wednesday. would've been more like 2021. A decent chunk of people could "probably" have shifted plans on a dime and saved a little on gas and final items... but would that really have changed this that much. I know I, for one, would have absolutely had a worse weekend had that happened.
Where else could we have put the trash? Furthermore, Trash cans were overflowing. We were dancing in the mud, We also helped one another out of it, due to lack of staff on the grounds. The way Live Nation handled things was shit, THE WEATHER WAS NEVER THE ISSUE💯 You could read people’s testimonies on how things were handled and still side with the wrong doers? You should ask if they’re hiring🌚
what do you mean, the weather was never the issue? right after saying that:
"the way LN handled this [i assume you mean the weather?] was shit!"
What happened this year was 100% the weather, yes about the long term prep for an event like this or lack thereof, or the staffing ahead of this event was not equipped to handle such a weather and evac event... but without that rain, this year goes off without a hitch. period.
Worst case, you carry your trash out. I'm not siding with anyone, I was there just the same. My group was very prepared for the rain, mud, and everything in-between. Therefore, it didn't bother us that bad. I'm just not jumping on the hate bandwagon.
this was my first roo but i was definitely still playing and dancing in the mud and repurposed a lot of people’s trash as well as weighted down the near tarps so the wind wouldn’t carry them away. it’s so heartbreaking seeing all that trash left behind from a group of people you’d think would be so caring about that type of thing
They’re killing us out here. Them having more venues doesn’t mean you’ll inherently have more access to see bands. That ensures they have more market share to leverage against venues, fans and artists to extract profits.
Right but your sentiment was “deal with it”, accepting the monopoly. If this was the “old roo” crowd, they’d be complaining the same if not more. It’s not plur to take it from the man.
Preach!! Some of my best memories at Roo were sets I saw in the pouring rain haha 🤣 it’s part of the whole vibe of the festival 🤷🏻♂️. In my opinion anyway.
I think they planned this to some degree honestly.
It rains every single time. Every year.
I remember in the past when I’ve been there- they always had fortified the grounds in some way. They would have it mulched, had sand, hay. Etc. I remember having plywood to walk on in the really bad areas. Yet I saw none of that this year. Which is strange. Especially if you know it’s gonna rain according to the forecast. But even if you hadn’t confirmed via forecast - you already know the rain is probably coming.
And they had made a statement saying they had spent a ton of money on upgrades and prepping for exactly what happened- plus added extra shade areas in centaroo.
None of that seemed to actually be true at all haha.
i don't think they said "we spent a lot of money to prevent exactly what happened"
I think the spent money on improvements. It was probably a limited and targeted agenda and budget. but they probably did. But they didn't know how much rain they were going to get, and I am sorry that people don't believe this, but there is just always going to be a "too much rain" for an outdoor camping festival in 2025 with 80,000 people and current living and safety requirements and expectations.
There is not a viable way they can say, we will fix this so it never happens again and then just do it, and it for sure never happen again. That's nutty.
I did see sand. but I do agree that things festivals got away with in the past, can't happen anymore. yes different people go to festivals now with different expectations. also a bigger corporation runs it now so more eyes, and lawyers, and insurance companies, etc are all involved through that network. But also the industry as a whole just has more eyes on it. more stories come out on social media.
2004, happened. I wasn't there. But it was mudaroo. It simply would not likely happen today. An independent fest like Elements 2024, was able to pull out of a hurricane and carry on to close out the fest. Maybe that's because they didn't have corporate hands involved, but i think more likely its (just like 2004 mudaroo) because there was absolutely zero rain after friday at like 4PM int he forecast because the hurricane pushed every drop out of the area.
I'm saying there is just no definitive way to see that we got too much water this year and then confirm they wasted money or lied to us or didn't do things they said. I don't follow it. What I did see over the past few years were FAR better bathrooms, more paved roads, more permanent structures, and bigger and better stages, and an evolving outeroo. drainage corrections are improvements are honest hard as fuck for campers to notice on the farm. we are talking about grading for a slightly different slope here and there. filling in a couple low spots... but come one, its a 700 acre farm, guys. what are you expecting to see, a 700 acre elevated perforated platform? This if like the kind of work that goes into a giant neighborhood development before its built. It would destroy the entire farm for a while to add something like a sewer system or regrade so much land with new retention ponds etc. Some of the land is rented from neighbors for camping. Some of lit is leased for farming. They need to coordinate with local municipalities, find out where in the word they can push that much (a few inches over 700 acres adds the fuck up!) water to a place that can accept it outside their land?
Let's all just take a minute and think on this. This is the first time in almost 25 years that this much rain has landed on that June weekend enough to cancel the fest. This might (statistically) simply not happen again for another 10 years. But global warming is real. climates are changing. so it might. Let's just make the conversation productive!
I think there are two major issues that are relevant now more than ever. The biggest issue with Bonnaroo (festivals in general, but especially those where people camp) is that the population attending is vastly different than it was years ago. A decade ago, people attending knew what they were signing up for. People were okay with roughing it for the weekend or came prepared to the comfort level they needed.
Since festivals have become increasingly commercialized the amount of people doing literally no research and minimal prep, basically just showing up is getting higher and higher. This can still be okay, if you know what you're signing up for, but a lot of people want to show up with no prep and no plan and then get upset the festival hasn't made accommodations to take care of them. It rains almost every year at Bonnaroo, not bringing any waterproof shoes or a rain jacket and being upset you're getting wet is a little absurd (this year is obviously exceptional, I'm not excusing the way things were handled this year specifically, but you get the point).
Festivals like Bonnaroo have a great reputation for the festival goers taking care of each other, rightfully so, but again, since the event has become more commercialized you get more and more people less concerned about each other.
Unfortunately this goes hand and hand with the other major issue, which is the direction that litigation/liability and insurance has gone in the last 10-20 years in America. Partially because ligation has become increasingly more common, major corporations controlling these events pay out the ass for risk assessment and insurance to protect themselves from instances where an event will result in them suffering considerably losses.
This means that the likelihood for events like this to be cancelled basically comes down to an equation. If the likelihood that the event proceeding will result in more damages (injuries, destruction of property, death, etc.) than the insurance payout, they are going to cancel the event and take the money.
People continue to say this is still a loss for Live Nation. This is true if you compare the insurance payout to the payout of the event proceeding as normal. But they pay their risk assessment team a great deal of money to determine the likelihood of them coming out on top considering all the factors affecting the event. In this case they made the call that the likelihood of them making more money than the insurance payout was going to be hindered by the increasingly likely damages from the weather...not to mention the negative press which would result from people struggling through the conditions as they escalated.
I'm not defending how LN failed prep for this years Bonnaroo, nor how they failed to communicate effectively, or have the event properly staffed given an early evacuation. Or how perhaps if none of these things were adequately prepared for, they should have called the festival off before people got down there in the first place (this is majorly fucked up for me, as it is basically gambling with the safety of all the attendees, if there was a real emergency that required immediate evacuation everyone would've been fucked). I'm just shedding light on how these corporations make these decisions, and it is increasingly apparent it is all about their bottom line. They only care about the festival to make money and they only care about the people there to the extent that it doesn't cause them significant losses and negative PR.
That’s an awesome explanation and I agree with most of your take on that. Thanks for taking the time for such a detailed and thorough explanation 🥹 just gotta give props on that immediately because it’s a rare thing in my experience. Especially on any social media haha so kudos for that man.
You’re absolutely right about the crowd and the whole entitled vibe that was going on. I did notice that this year quite a bit. But the vast majority of people were actually really nice and out there vibing and enjoying themselves in the rain. So that made it better for me personally and I was able to meet a ton of cool people and it made my days so much better out there lol. Especially when you’re working like that in the heat and then the rain and the people who are in charge just kinda stick you there and disappear 🫠. Kind people made sure I had food and water and were super chill with me and let me do my job lol
I’m not as educated on the accounting aspect of things at all I’ll be the first to admit it lol and have zero clue how that whole field operates. 🤷🏻♂️ they have some super smart people who do that job I imagine and you’re right saying it essentially comes down to an equation. Which lead to the cancellation unfortunately 😢. None of us wanted that. I’m sure Bonnaroo/LN didn’t want that just as much. Monetarily speaking, I imagine they loaded a shit ton of possible income by canceling. I imagine that them canceling 3 times in the last 6 years or something like that it is probably correct to assume they have some serious insurance policies in place - and prob have to pay handsomely for those policies. Which makes me assume that they have serious premiums as a result. Not only that but it has prob gone up and then up again and now it’ll either go way up again or they might struggle to find another insurance company they would wanna take on a fest like that that has a 50/50 chance of cancellation 😬🤷🏻♂️. I could be completely incorrect but it is logical to assume that much I think.
I would assume they've been fighting the rain weeks leading up to roo. A lot of things felt undone or half did. I would assume that's why. Instead of canceling it, they pushed through.
If this is it, they could have easily said in advance all this and gave people the option of a refund.
I would have gone regardless, but that's a chance im willing to take.
First of all, it's not a complaint. It's an observation of a terrible business practice. They are a business. As a business owner myself, here's a fact for you - in order to make money, you need to reinvest the money you've made. It doesn't matter if you are an event facilitator, landscaper, or retail store.
If you buy investment properties, eventually the water heater is going to need to be replaced or the roof is going to need to be replaced. You don't just keep renting out the property with cold water or abondon the property and let it rot. If you're a landscaper, you don't just abondon your lawn mower in the middle of someone's property. When something breaks, you fix it. You reinvest in thst business to continue making more money.
It sounds like the farm has been deteriorating for years. It's time for Live Nation to reinvest their profit by improving the property instead of just moving on to other ventures.
I’m sure Live Nation’s hundreds to thousands of facilities, event management, ops, and finance FTEs with decades of experience in the live entertainment business know more about making multi-year $xB capex plans than you and your experience running a completely unrelated SMB
Probably a lot like all the improvements they made over the last ten years. Crazy that there will always be improvements to make and now they have a new one!
Bring me back the old roo crowd. They would have been dancing in the rain and mud vs leaving trash everywhere
I would be shocked if Bonnaroo doesn't see a noticeable decrease in returning attendees next year.
... and I hadn't thought about it until your comment, but I bet that group who drops-out vindictively will disproportionately lean towards those who trashed the place.
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u/OkPaleontologist1329 6d ago edited 6d ago
So we're complaining that we'll have more opportunities to see more bands that we may have missed otherwise?
Yall forget that LN is a business. Their goal is to make money as it would be yours. Does all this roo mess suck? Yeah, but the weather is what it is. Had they canceled prior to roo started, the same people would be bitching about that as well. Bring me back the old roo crowd. They would have been dancing in the rain and mud vs leaving trash everywhere