For fans of the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival there are three big days throughout the year; the release of the lineup, the release of the schedule and opening day of the 80,000-person music and camping event in Manchester, Tennessee.
Fans got No. 1 in March and the event officially starts in three weeks on Sept. 2 and runs through Sept. 5.
Thursday, fans got the much-anticipated schedule.
Now the fun part - figuring out how to see all of the must-see acts on your wish list and where the conflicts are.
"Schedule release is probably secondary to lineup day itself, mostly because it gives you a rough guideline on what acts you'll actually get to see. Sometimes the conflicts are heartbreaking, but that's been the nature of the beast at Bonnaroo and part of the tradition for years," said Daniel Horton, co-curator and owner of The Roo Bus, a now-iconic school bus that will for the first time host one of the experiences in the general camping area for attendees.
BONNAROO SCHEDULE
View the schedule at www.bonnaroo.com/schedule.
The experiences, as they are called, can include pop-up shows or art demonstrations in one of the designated camping zones and are an extracurricular activity separate from the main music lineup. One of the major changes this year is that fans can pre-schedule their arrival times as early as Aug. 31. This is designed to alleviate long lines of traffic with patrons lined up to get in.
The schedule includes Urban Cowboy Line Dancing at 7:30 p.m. Thursday followed by Yomi That Harpist and Sam White at 8 p.m. and Bobby Booshay (a reference to the "Waterboy" movie) performing after midnight in the Where in the Woods stage.
The Wednesday schedule includes nearly a half-dozen events as well. The actual festival doesn't officially open until Thursday. In past years, Wednesday and Thursday were considered move-in day and there were no official events planned.
Horton and his wife, Sharla, live in Huntsville, Alabama, and have attended eight Bonnaroo festivals and are year-round champions of the event on social media and via their podcast The Real Roo Bus. He's been following the online discussions of the schedule and possible lineup changes with a particular eye on Tame Impala, which was rumored online on Tuesday to have been replaced on the lineup.
"I'd been following some of the tidbits of news closely, mostly because in this crazy year nothing is guaranteed and the lineup was always at risk of changing. Tame Impala is hugely personal to me, and I'd been on pins and needles about being able to see them. Finally having my head clear on this has me more excited than ever to see them that Saturday night."
The festival is typically held in the middle of June but was postponed to Labor Day weekend in September because of COVID-19. Organizers announced a new set of guidelines and protocols on Tuesday that require attendees be fully vaccinated or show proof of a negative test to enter. It will also require the wearing of a mask when inside any of the enclosed spaces on the 700-acre farm where the event is held.
The guidelines go a little further than those imposed at last month's Lollapalooza Festival in Chicago and the Moon River Fest in Chattanooga the second weekend of September and the Railbird Festival in Lexington, Kentucky, at the end of August. Those three are also owned by entertainment giant Live Nation.
ABC News reported on Thursday that 203 cases of COVID-19 were reported in the two weeks following Lollapalooza, which drew more than 385,000 over four days.
AEG, the second largest concert promoter in the country, announced on Thursday it would require proof of vaccination at all of its venues in the United States.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.