Bianca Phillips
Bonnaroo Music Festival last year.
For one weekend in mid-June for 13 consecutive years, a massive field in rural Manchester, Tennessee — just outside Nashville — has been taken over by 80,000-plus music fans, four music stages, a water park, a Ferris wheel, and all manner of other attractions at the annual Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. This year is no different, and the Flyer is offering one lucky reader a set of free passes to Bonnaroo this weekend (June 11th-14th). Details can be found at the end of this post.
This year, Billy Joel, Deadmau5, Kendrick Lamar, Florence + The Machine, My Morning Jacket, Alabama Shakes, and Mumford & Sons will headline the festival alongside more than a hundred musical acts from a variety of genres. The full line-up is available here. The roster of stand-up comedians is fronted by Memphis’ own Chris Hardwick and Seattle-based Reggie Watts. You can see the Comedy Theatre line-up here.
Bonnaroo is so much more than just live performances though. Most of those 80,000-plus festival-goers camp on Bonnaroo’s grounds and make the fest their home away from home for the weekend. As such, there’s a post office, a general store, and hundreds of food options. For those who can’t let their workout routine slide for a weekend, there’s a full line-up of yoga classes and a 5K run. There are multiple parades planned, including a crazy hat parade. And there are plenty of costume theme parties to keep party animals busy all weekend. Fest-goers can keep cool inside the air-conditioned Cinema Tent, where cult classics, contemporary movies, and documentaries screen all weekend. Eighties teen actor Corey Feldman will be on-hand in the Cinema Tent for a 30th anniversary screening of The Goonies. New this year is The Grove, a wooded area on the 700-acre farm near the camping pods that that was previously unused. It will be adorned with lights, art installations, and hammock seating.
To win a pair of Bonnaroo tickets, send an email to Bianca Phillips, at bphillips@memphisflyer.com and we’ll randomly select a winner on Tuesday, June 9th, at 2 p.m. You must be able to come to the Flyer office and retrieve the tickets to win.