MANCHESTER, Tenn. – The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Coffee County has become a rite of passage for people of all ages and locations over its 16-year history.
“It’s my 60th birthday,” said Jeff Bennett from Memphis. “It’s my first festival ever, and I expect to have the best time of my life.”
Thursday on “The Farm,” as Great Stage Park is known, is “move-in day.” That’s when the crowd, which is expected to be larger than the (unofficial) almost 50,000 people who attended last year, but not the 80,000 that would make it a sold-out event, drive in and get their campsites set up.
After that chore is done, veterans roam the main Centeroo area checking out what is different, and first-timers try to get the lay of the nearly 700-acre site.
Nineteen-year-old Natalie Gannon from St. Louis is attending her first Bonnaroo with friends who also recently graduated from high school. Her first order of business was lunch.