Parker Reed was in a car “packed to the gills” with two friends as they hit the halfway point of their 700-mile drive to Manchester, Tennessee. That’s when his phone started blowing up with posts and texts that the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival had been canceled.
“We were about eight hours into our drive and had just hit Metropolis, Illinois, where we always stop, when [the news] hit,” he said.
Reed is the co-host of the Roo Hamm podcast, “the world’s only podcast about Bonnaroo and Hamm’s beer,” and on Wednesday morning, the 13 members of the Roo Hamm “Groop” (as Bonnaroo patrons who camp together are known), were holed up in a hotel room in Nashville trying to figure out where they could spend the weekend camping and what they would do for entertainment.
With him was his show co-host Jake Dalbey. They had secured a hotel room in Nashville for Tuesday night before making the drive and had extended it for Wednesday, but after that, they had no definitive plans.
“We do have all of this camping equipment and food,” he said.