The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, which opens Thursday, June 7, in Manchester, Tennessee, will likely always be thought of as a hippie fest featuring a lineup heavy on jam bands like Widespread Panic and Phish in some people’s eyes. But the reality is that it has adapted since the inaugural sold-out event in 2002 to include several genres.
In fact, electronic dance music, or EDM acts such as Hippie Sabotage, Kaskade, Snakehips and Carnage, now dominate the lineup, according to the folks at Vividseats.com. They took a look at “Genre Trends at America’s Biggest Music Festivals” since 2014 (www.vividseats.com/blog/music-festival-genres.html), and confirmed what regular Bonnaroo attendees have already known: The number of dance and electronica acts increased while the number of all others has decreased.
According to their research, “In 2017, 14 percent of Bonnaroo’s acts were of the rap/hip-hop genre, double the share it occupied at the festival in 2014 (7 percent). At 10 percent of the 2018 Bonnaroo lineup, this year’s share of rap/hip-hop acts is 2.5 times the share that the genre enjoyed in 2015, when just 4 percent of the festival acts were of the rap/hip-hop variety.”
Dance/electronica has in fact grown each year over the past five years, according to the study. It represented 10 percent of the lineup in 2014; in 2018, EDM acts make up 27 percent of all performers falling into that genre.
There are 11 stages at Bonnaroo, with most offering a variety of music styles throughout the four-day festival. But last year, organizers dedicated The Other Stage entirely to EDM, a move that co-founder Ashley Capps says proved to be a big hit with fans.