A major festival from what I can tell in the US has never been, especially a camping festival,

has never been fully loaded and then fully not loaded within a 24 to 36 hour period.

You know, candidly the first question was can we ever do this show again?

Over 90% of the people that responded to that survey told us that they would come in 2026.

90%.

Yeah, do you actually want some like corporate big wigs like making your festival or do you

want like a bunch of idiots like us doing it?

First Bonnaroo 26 confirmation, I'm saying it.

All right, welcome back to the What Podcast.

This is going to be a very special edition.

You probably recognize everybody on the screen, but if you don't, I'm Barry, that's Russ,

that's Brian, that's Cory and that's Brad.

Brad and Cory from C3.

What do you guys want to talk about?

Anything going on?

Just got back from Lollapalooza.

That's the first thing on my list, Brad, is say Lollapalooza looked like it was absolutely

rocking.

It was a lot of fun.

It was crazy.

Big year, lots of big artists, lots of Chappellrone moments, Dochey, Gracie Abrams, really big

daytime crowds.

It was fun to see.

Nice, nice.

I didn't go.

I stayed home.

How's that baby, by the way?

She's awesome.

That's what I was doing.

I was doing family hangs.

Good for you.

Congratulations.

All right.

We obviously are here.

I was joking.

We are obviously here to talk about Bonnaroo.

It's been a gosh month and a half.

In some ways, it seems like a half a year and in some ways it seems like it was last

week. Right.

Is that about how you guys feel?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We have questions that people gave us on our Discord that we want to get to.

We talked yesterday, Brian and Russ and I talked yesterday.

There's lots to talk about, but a couple of main topics we want to get to.

Sort of quick recap, if we can, of that Friday, I guess.

And I'm interested in the week and the two weeks after and what was going on then.

But also some announcements that you guys made regarding 2026.

We are coming back with some changes.

And I know from the Discord, Tuesday changes and Thursday changes seem to be the big

one. So I want to make sure we get to those and then whatever else time we have.

We'll fill it out from there.

So if you guys don't mind, and I hate picking at a scab, but talk us through.

Friday, I'll do this and I'll handle this and I'll make it as quick as possible because

I've had to have this conversation far too many times.

Not that I don't enjoy it.

Not that I don't enjoy talking to you guys.

Yeah, Brad, this is the most listened to podcast on the Internet.

This is the place to do it.

And as soon as Theo Von finally answers my or Corey's emails.

So here's what I'll say.

I'll try to dilute it down to a few few succinct points.

One, every single thing we do revolves around safety, period.

In the story, there's no color commentary needed.

Every decision we ever make at the base of that decision is safety for the fans of the show.

When it comes to decision making, the small group that Corey and I are in that go through

these processes when we have these types of events that shows, not just Bonnaroo, any

event period.

The lens we're using is safety.

And what you have to understand is we become like attorneys.

We have to deal with every what if.

We have to deal with the one percent.

We can't just go with what the likelihood is going to happen.

We have to go with what are all the possible outcomes and scenarios, and we have to evaluate

all those outcomes and scenarios and make a decision based on how we can handle or

maneuver or get through any of those possible outcomes.

And for those of you who have watched any documentary about an event that's gone very

bad that might be on the Internet, Firefest, Woodstock 99, you can see that things can

just get out of hand very quickly when you have a large crowd like what's at Bonnaroo.

And when you get into 30,000 cars parked on grass and the ability to potentially not

service restrooms, get clean water, get food to people, or even get people the ability

to leave on their own accord without having to tow them out of mud.

That's when things can just get really hairy.

And so I hope that people listening to this kind of understand all of the nightmare

scenarios that we have to go through and also understand that what our team went through

has never been done before.

A major festival, from what I can tell in the U.S., has never been, especially a camping

festival, has never been fully loaded and then fully not loaded within a 24 to 36 hour

period. So to some extent, we have these plans and we sit at tables and we talk through

all of these things. But you all know having to do a plan versus talking about one is two

different things. So we won't, you know, unless you guys really want to, I would prefer to

not get into things today that maybe people think we did wrong, but just know that we

were we were doing it in real time.

And the things where we think we did wrong, we've made notes and we've made changes to

how those plans work so that next time we don't do it wrong.

That's that's the way I'll probably summarize all of that easiest.

One quick follow up on that, Brad.

Yeah. And I don't want to go too far into this because we're going to talk about more of

the future than the past today.

That was that's that's what we discussed yesterday.

I think that's a good idea.

But we all knew that because Tennessee and the southeast has been just very unpredictable

this year, lots of rain, mild temperatures leading up into June.

But it looked like we were going to have a bit of a wet weekend.

I mean, everybody was pretty much gearing up for that.

When did when did you and your team start to feel like, OK, this is this is probably

going to be a problem?

I think it was something that was happening in real time.

I mean, everybody knows we had a very wet May.

And I think going into the show, wet May plus a day or two of rain was not a calculation

that we thought was going to be to our detriment.

But in the middle of it, a wet May plus two days of pop up storms that were completely

not what the National Weather Service had told us was going to happen.

And them telling us that there was potential for rain for the next 10 forecasted days

was really the whole picture that you have to look at in that scenario.

It's not just about getting a little rain on on Thursday or Friday.

And it's not just about getting a little rain on Thursday or Friday with a wet May

right before you. It's about wet May, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

Like that is really what the big picture and the full puzzle was to look at.

So I appreciate I appreciate the question.

Yeah, it's a lot of a very complex situation to sit in a room and navigate in real time

with that many people sitting out in the field waiting on you to make a decision.

So I would also add to that just really quick.

Like on Tuesday, when we started loading the site, we had crews out there kind of

triaging a couple spaces that were just a little bit wet.

And to us, that was kind of like like reviewing the grounds were like, OK, things

are like looking really great out here, like the farms held up well.

And then we were going into a stretch of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of dry, sunny

weather. And so I think all of us were just like super optimistic.

We're like, sweet. We've got the window where the grounds can dry.

You know, we're looking at maybe an inch of rain over three days or golden.

So that's that's kind of what we were looking at.

Yeah, and I just want to make a comment for the record, because I think I've heard it

come up a couple of times.

I know that you guys know that the reason that we held doors was not because we needed

two extra hours for the grass to dry.

Sometimes we just need time for our team to finish up what they need to finish up

before we let people get on the property.

So we weren't naive to think that by pushing doors on Tuesday to get people in the

campgrounds that that we were going to solve all the world's problems.

We were just we were just given some of our teams that were behind some time to catch

up before. I don't even think we ended up opening like 30 minutes late or something.

I think we were like basically open on time.

Yeah, you pretty much were.

Yeah, because we were sitting around at Comin John that Tuesday.

And then, yeah, when when word broke that it was open, we were like, let's go.

So, yeah, it wasn't the full two hours, I don't think.

No, I remember having teams like ready to get out there and like like content teams,

like capture people as they were coming in.

And we had to kind of scramble because we got the call like, hey, we're actually

got about ready to open.

I was like, oh, we're cool.

All right. So moving on, you make the call on Friday.

Pretty much everybody's gone by Saturday as far as like patrons, but you guys still

have a lot of work to do and it's still very wet.

At what point does your team tend you start looking to the future?

You start planning for next year.

I mean, I know you're probably in your head.

You're already making notes and all that.

But like official, when when do you guys sit down and say, all right, what do we

get? What about next year?

Or what? What was the conversation?

Let's start there because there's a lot of speculation.

I think the first thing is just like, you know, one of one of the things in like some

of the stuff that we've put out there since the cancellation was like trying to give

our fans a little peek behind the curtain as to like who we are, like not just me and

Brad, like, you know, the extended C3 crew and the, you know, the folks who are

contracted that have worked on this show for 15, 20 years on various elements.

Like.

It was, it was really sad.

Like, I mean, sad is like not even relatively close to being the right word.

Like people just walking around back there doing their jobs with no expression on

their faces.

Like just like everybody's dog just died.

It was like, I mean, it was like one of the most traumatizing things that like I've

ever been to, which sound, which that I've ever been through, which sounds kind of silly

because obviously it's a music festival, but it means a lot, man.

And like, I don't know.

I don't know if anybody was able to really think straight for a few days on our team.

So like, just, just to say, like, we, we were going through it with everybody in a big

way.

So that, like, I don't know.

I don't remember when we started thinking about the future.

It definitely wasn't the first couple of days.

Yeah.

I think the word Brian, Brian uses soul crushing and that seems to be the one that

it was for all of us.

I mean, you know, I think we did a show quickly cause we felt like we needed to, but

even I remember saying, you know, let's, let's don't speculate too much.

It's too early.

It hurts for everybody.

And if you're mad, if you're sad, if you're whatever, those are your emotions and

own them and you, you know, they're, you deserve them.

When I went and told the larger team what we were about to do and that their next 48

hours were going to be real shitty, you know, I had to hold back a lot of emotions

and I went and sat and closed my door in my office and cried by myself.

I mean, that, that, and it's not about me.

It's not about Corey.

It's like, we really care one about how much work our team puts into this show, but

how much we know it means for the fans and that makes it so much harder.

Um, and you know, Barry, to, to go back to your original question, you know, when

we started thinking about it, uh, after giving ourselves just a, a, a beat to

prop, to process what was going on, you know, candidly, the first question was,

can we ever do this show again?

And that wasn't about, you know, one particular metric.

It was about everything.

Fan sentiment, uh, a business decision, two cancellations in five years due to,

due to weather.

Um, you know, can we ever get insurance coverage again?

Like there's a, there's a lot of things that go into, uh, that.

And the first question was, can we even do it?

And if we can do it, what does it have to look like?

Does it have, does it need to change?

And that kind of led to, I'm sure some of the other things you're going to want to

ask us about, but you know, we had to really sit back and take everything off

the table and put it back on the table again and make, make sure it made sense.

Um, in that, in that moment.

So that was like the two weeks, I would call it two to three weeks right after

the show that we were going through all those conversations internally.

I mean, you've had, you mentioned the two, two weather events, but you also

had COVID.

So you guys with this event in particular, and you guys are the best in the world at

what you do.

Right.

I mean, so you've had some experience, um, overcoming something pretty major.

Um, but I was interested, you said just a minute ago, like kind of, how did that go?

Did you, when you guys did get together, it is like, okay, blank slate start over.

What do we know works?

What are we unsure of?

What do we need to talk about?

Is that kind of how it went?

Yeah.

And I, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to be the only one talking here.

So Corey, like, feel free to chime in whenever you want, but you know, something

this is going to be a little bit inside baseball, but you know, when we, Corey

mentioned that we were, after the cancellation happened, we not only wanted

to humanize our team, which we thought was a really important part of the

team, which we thought was a really important element because that's what we

are.

We're just humans trying to do the best at a career that we think we're really

good at.

But we also wanted fans to feel like it goes back to what I've shared with you

all about the talent census, right?

We make a lot of assumptions on our own without actually asking the fans.

And so when we started doing these improvement surveys and the, uh, date

surveys and all of that stuff, for me personally, um, it wasn't necessarily just

about the answers to the questions.

It was about a general pulse check on if people, uh, I don't know if I can curse

on this podcast, but it, for me, it was like, you know, are we going to put this

survey out there and 50,000 people are just going to say, fuck you.

I don't care about any of the answers to these questions.

Um, because the thing that was different between this and 21 was we didn't bring

everybody in and give them the best Thursday of their life and then tell them

they got to get out.

That that's a completely different scenario from a customer, customer

service standpoint.

So I think we really were trying to evaluate what the actual sentiment was

because we, it took us three years to recover from the 21 cancellation from,

uh, in September from a customer service standpoint, just getting people to trust

us that they could come to the show and buy a ticket and we weren't going to, you

know, they weren't going to end up in a bad spot.

And now here we are back in a bad spot, a worse spot.

So how do we, how, how quickly can we, how quickly can we recover from it or can

we recover from it at all?

Really?

Yeah, Corey, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that too, because you're coming

from the marketing angle and that's going to be something I would imagine you guys

spend a lot of time on is how you get this out to the people.

What, how you spread this message.

I know you guys all work in tandem, but I'd love your thoughts on that too.

I mean, I think we immediately like dreamed up every scenario you could imagine

for possibly moving forward.

Um, and then we needed to kind of start figuring out what was realistic.

I think what Brad said was, I mean, we, we, we knew that like, with the type of

community that we have with Bonnaroo where everyone feels like this thing, or at

least a piece of it is theirs, um, that everyone needed to be involved in that

decision.

And the only way that we were going to be able to come out of something, you

know, so heartbreaking was to have everyone, everyone, meaning the community,

us, the fans, everyone feel like they are part of deciding to do that and then

letting us make it happen.

Um, so, I mean, I think, I, I think this idea of like doing these surveys, um,

like Brad and I did a couple of years ago, kind of asking more about talent and

overall experience kind of just popped to the front of mind.

Um, and so, you know, we, we took some time to look at like, you know, how,

how the weather event happened and, you know, what we felt like the chances of

it happening again were, um, how abnormal it was.

And, you know, honestly, if there was a different time of year that made more

sense to do the show, um, June is one of the driest parts of the year in the

region, um, every year, historically on average, et cetera, that like late

September, early October timeframe is the driest part of the year.

Uh, the only catch is up until late September, you sometimes get a

spinoff from a hurricane.

Um, so that's a risk, but we wanted to see, you know, are people more open to

that risk.

And then you also, you know, cut down the heat substantially.

If you move it a few weeks later in July, uh, it's, you know, on average four or

five degrees hotter, but it's a lot drier.

It is almost completely dry in that timeframe.

Um, but then, I mean, you were in August now, but you look out the window right

now here in Tennessee, it's been raining for three days.

So what, what, what a boil down to is it is a little more unexpected, um, than

it has been in the past.

Uh, and that just is what it is.

Um, June is, you know, it's, it's not only the best time of year, like

percentage wise to do the show, but we also heard that it's what people wanted.

Uh, people wanted to stay the same, but the most remarkable thing on that first

survey, which I feel like is why we are even here right now, um, and have

announced that we're doing the show again is that over 90% of the people that

responded to that survey and almost 40,000 people responded to that survey

told us that they would come in 2026.

90%.

Wow.

Um, that's not what we were expecting at all.

Um, so I think that that was kind of like, I don't know.

I was, I was super inspired by that.

Um, I think a lot of people on the team were, um, obviously like on the business

side, uh, that's a pretty good thumbs up to figure out how to make this thing happen.

So I feel like that, to me, that was kind of the catalyst of this whole thing.

Like just seeing how much the fans want, want it to happen.

Like, you know, we just went through this and we're still telling you we'll come

next year.

That's, that's pretty fucking cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that community thing it's until you see it and feel it.

And I mean, we do a show every week about an event in June.

Um, I don't think people can quite grasp how, like you said, that ownership, it's

amazing to me, all the, the different people that we run into that have their own camps

and their own family things and their own, I mean, and they all talk about it.

Like you said, like it's mine, you know, I, I own this festival.

This is, this is what I want.

And this is what I want to tell Brad and Corey.

I want you hear that all the time.

Speaking of which you want to take a break Barry, and then we'll get to some of these

discord questions from, from listeners.

Let's do it.

All right.

Yeah.

We reached out to listeners to this show and, and members of our discord and asked you

guys to send questions that for Corey and Brad knowing they would be on.

And I know Rush, you've kind of pulled some of them are duplicates.

So let's go.

What's the first, what's the first one?

Yeah, let's start with, there's a lot of questions about this Thursday welcome party.

Can you touch on that?

Is it going to be one single artist?

Is there going to be a super jam?

Is there going to be, I guess everyone's just kind of, cause it's never happened before

like this.

What is, what can we expect?

Thursday?

We can spend the rest of the show on Thursday, but we won't, but go ahead.

Yes.

I'll take this one.

Um, our vision for Thursday is yeah, it's definitely going to be, uh, good on the talent

side, right?

It's going to be, uh, you know, artists that I think it's going to be an artist that is

exciting enough to come just for that.

Right.

Um, but I think we're also kind of trying to look at it as like an Olympic opening

ceremony type thing.

Like, like we're trying to plan, you know, a bunch of fun, Bonnaroo craziness, uh, for

everyone to experience together in that field.

And, you know, I don't want to share too much.

I'm really excited about the direction that that's heading.

I would absolutely show up for it.

And I don't, I don't think we a hundred percent know, um, all the details, you know, is it,

is it one artist?

Is it multiple?

Um, you know, how long does it last?

What time does it start?

I think that that stuff's going to come out later.

Um, but the goal is to make it really, really special and sort of a can't miss, uh, very

boderoo thing.

I, I, I don't know, man.

What, one of the things when we went to Glastonbury, um, you know, they, they kind of hit their

Thursday like we do.

Um, but they have a big opening celebration, um, and there's so much energy out there.

Uh, and it was super cool.

So I think, I think there's a lot that we can do, uh, within the bar universe, uh, to

kind of start a new tradition there.

Um, and, and make it really, really fun and special.

But just to clarify center on Thursday is not going to look like it has the last 10,

12, 13 years, right?

We're not this, that the other are completely dark for the day.

Is that what we're thinking?

I would say details wise, I would expect the two tenths, uh, to a hundred percent not operate.

Um, crushes my soul guys.

And obviously, obviously which stage has never been on on Thursday.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and, and then like outside of that, like, I think it's a little too early to tell for

sure.

Um, but the plan is definitely to focus on doing something in the what stage area.

So can I, I want to add a little bit of color, a little bit of color here.

Um, well, the first thing that I want to say just for what Corey and I and the rest of the

team were thinking about this whole time, you know, for these statements and the messaging

that we've put out about what next year will look like a big piece for us was to try to

remain as transparent as possible about what was going on and what we were talking about

behind the scenes.

And part of that transparency was just us.

We didn't want to feel like we were ever going to surprise people with something.

So that meant that we decided we needed to give a heads up that Thursday would be different,

even if we didn't have all the answers to all the questions yet about what that meant.

So like Corey said, we're still figuring some of that out.

There could be things that change, but what we didn't want to do, we would rather,

we would rather feel like we took away and then ended up giving back some more than just surprise

you all at once of like, oh, we're taking all this away.

So just when you think about the messaging for next year, just keep that context in mind

that the transparency was really important for us.

And real quick, Barry, before I forget the other point that I wanted to bring up.

Sure.

Brian, to what you were, or I totally understand where you're coming from, Brian, like about

Thursday.

I love it, man.

I love Thursday.

Yeah.

And I think that we will find ways to still have that same feeling on Thursday.

I want to just point out that, so one of the notes in the release is that we're lowering

the capacity of the show, which at the end of the day means we're taking revenue away,

which means we have to find expenses to save on.

Understood.

And as far as Thursday goes, I just want to point out, we can still invest money in,

when we're saving money at a show like Bonnaroo, it doesn't mean that it has to reflect in the level

or what talent you're able to see.

We save a lot of money by just not having to put security and medical and stagehands

and an extra day of hotel nights and lunches and dinners and breakfast, all of that stuff

that's not just the artist that goes on stage, but what it takes to turn the lights on at

one of those tents or one of the stages.

So just keep that in mind as a framework for some of the other questions that you might

ask or other stuff, information that we might give you is like, when we're looking for ways to

save money on this show, the first thing is not for us to go, well, how can we just book

smaller bands or less bands or anything like that?

Along those lines, we got to maybe a little bit ahead of ourselves.

The major changes, if you will, are no Tuesday entry, right?

You're moving to Wednesday and the Thursday thing.

So I'm curious, kind of you just answered it a little bit, but when you guys sat

down and said, okay, 90%, 40,000 people, 90% say they're coming back.

What do we have to give them?

What are the key core things and what are a few of the things that we can talk about?

And I assume Tuesday was one of them because again, that's something you have to staff, right?

I mean, the awesome thing about Tuesday is like one of the biggest expense line items is like per

day, just opening the campgrounds.

That's a really, really, really big expense.

And that's an expense we decided to take on when we added the Tuesday entry option,

because it makes the entrance experience take a lot less time for fans.

But it's an easy trade off because with the reduced capacity, you are basically cutting

the gates by the amount of people that typically come in on the Tuesday.

So we're able to offer that same experience and just have it open one last day.

So that was a win-win.

That felt like a really easy, convenient decision on our end.

You've got about 20% of the fans that already on a year like this year,

15 to 20% that are still showing up after Thursday night into Friday morning, surprisingly.

And you're at 10 to 15% on Tuesday.

The heavy days are Wednesday, Thursday.

And we just felt like with the reduction on capacity that we're talking about,

that we could get away with not needing as much lead.

The Tuesday thing was strictly from give us more time to get everybody on the farm.

But with the numbers that were typically showing up on Tuesday and the reduction on capacity for

26, it just felt like a whole day of staffing that we didn't really think we would need was

an easy way for us to look at saving some dollars.

Justin Perdue Is there a new parking entry structure here to how you guys get people on

the farm and for the show itself?

I mean, is that a big part of, correct me if I'm wrong, Tuesday, Wednesday, staggered,

Thursday, staggered parking had some or entry had something to do with getting people in,

correct?

Yeah.

And where do you go and do you change that from here with that change of the dates?

Justin Perdue I think the changes will be something that fans don't even notice,

which will be just how we load the property.

Right now, we obviously park at starting at the arch and then load backwards,

but there's little trigger points.

So like when a line of cars gets to a certain place, they'll reroute and start camping another

area.

And I think with the reduction on the capacity, because we're going to no longer camp certain

areas that might be more prone to or susceptible to weather, that will just mean that some of those

interior triggers will change because there will just be areas that we have

camped in the past that we won't.

So there's not going to be any, from a fan experience or from a buyer standpoint,

there's not going to be anything that you notice as a change other than not being able to come on

Tuesday.

Justin Perdue I just think there's a few people out there that might be worried that we could go

back to park like backed up interstate I-24.

Justin Perdue Yeah, that's definitely a concern.

Justin Perdue It's not a not not not no.

Justin Perdue I mean, the math works like the, you know, the amount of people

that we're processing on the Wednesday and Thursday will remain similar to the amount

of people that we process Wednesday and Thursday, the past couple of years, where people have had

like, maybe two, three hour waits at the very, very most peak hours.

So.

Justin Perdue Here's something for all the Reddit and Discord people to help us spread

the word on this.

You know, we've talked to you guys multiple times on a bunch of different areas about how

important the data is that we collect.

And what I can tell you when it comes to getting cars in and not having traffic,

the math that we have works if people if people listen to us about when to show up.

That's why we put all these intricate charts together and we're asking for the moon.

Justin Perdue I know, but I'm.

Justin Perdue You're asking for the moon.

Justin Perdue Listen, it'll it'll work even when people work against us.

But what I'm saying is it works.

It works really good if people listen to us.

And it works okay if people don't listen to it.

Justin Perdue We got backed up on Tuesday this year because

everybody came right in the middle of one of those red spikes that we put on the on those

grass.

And then there's like once once that happens, you can't really catch up.

So.

Justin Perdue Yeah, does this feel like and I've used this word on the show last couple

weeks.

Does this feel like a reset year while you re figure things out or does this feel like

a again, this is probably the way forward.

Justin Perdue I don't really I don't I don't really see a need.

Justin Perdue I want to see how this year goes.

Justin Perdue I want to see I want to get out of it and see what fans thought of this

setup.

Justin Perdue Just how things go logistically and then start looking ahead.

I mean, we've obviously talked about it, but I think it's better to just like let this

thing happen.

Justin Perdue See how it goes and then, you know, kind of do the same thing we did this

year, like get information from the fans, see what they like, see what they didn't like.

Justin Perdue And then look at how we want to move forward.

I don't think it does us any good to try to like start planning that right now.

Justin Perdue Yeah, because one of the questions was the possibility of Tuesday entry being

added in the future, but it sounds like probably too early to make that decision, right?

Justin Perdue I would say anything is possible.

Yeah, because like, I mean, Russ, the truth is, you know, we have a year that's a down year

because of sales are down because of the lineup.

We don't need Tuesday.

You know, if we've got 50,000 people coming out there, we don't need Tuesday.

If we've got 40,000, I hope that never happens again.

But like the Tuesday thing is a necessity for the operation.

So there's boxes that get checked on if it's necessary and needed or if it's not.

So that'll kind of flex either way.

Justin Perdue I'd like to get on to another one from Discord,

but really fast in the quickest way you want to answer Brad.

What percentage can you tell us that we're going down in capacity?

If we're all in the neighborhood of thinking it's 80,000, we've always said for 22 years.

Are you talking 10% down, 20% down at a capacity number?

Brad Kupiec I would say between 10 and 20.

It's not a hard number yet.

We're still doing a bunch of evaluating on the site and redrawing the whole thing.

But I would put it in the ballpark of 10 to 20.

Justin Perdue That's good enough.

What do you got, Russ?

Russ Let's switch gears and let's talk about the

Infinity Stage for a minute because there was some people that really do kind of want to know

more about what happened there.

It almost seems like what we were delivered wasn't quite what was sold.

Any thoughts on that?

Justin Perdue We've got lots of thoughts.

Russ You can tell us about-

Justin Perdue Brad's taking this one.

Justin Perdue Shocking.

Brad has thoughts.

I can't believe it.

Russ I got lots of thoughts.

Here's what I'll tell you.

And you can pick this up by just reading the internet, which I unfortunately do too much.

Justin Perdue You do.

Russ If you got inside one of the zones, you had the best show of your life.

If you couldn't get in it, you had the worst show of your life and it sounded like shit.

That's what it boils down to.

The reason that that whole stage is challenging from the very beginning was that we had to make

it at scale.

They had only ever built one single of those immersive audio zones at an event for, let's call

it, 1,500 people.

We knew from the beginning that if we were going to do something like that at Bonnaroo,

we had to make the throughput high enough that a lot more people could experience it.

And we thought we were going to accomplish that by building three of them, which had never

been done before.

And what happened was we did too good of a job programming it and three wasn't enough.

We needed seven of them.

And so what it took.

Justin Perdue We did too good of a job.

Russ Yeah.

So what happened was the people that wanted to go see Rebecca Black and couldn't get anywhere

near it, they're just going with, this is the dumbest sounding piece of shit I've ever

heard of.

Brad Parker's an idiot.

He should quit and never work in the business again.

Justin Perdue Yeah, you do read.

You do read all those notes.

Russ Yeah.

And the people that-

Justin Perdue So you got my email.

Russ Yeah.

And the people that were able to get inside one of the shows had a great time.

I mean, we've got tons of videos of people getting interviewed saying, it's the craziest

thing I've ever heard in my life.

Justin Perdue There'll be a negative comment from the tractor being set.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So like, all in all, to wrap that conversation up, moving into 26, we had to find a way to

cut expenses, right?

And a way to cut expenses is not to triple down on the most expensive stage that we've

ever built to make it work.

So-

Justin Perdue Everybody hated.

Justin Perdue Yeah.

So will there be something with immersive audio that we try to figure out down the road

maybe?

Yeah.

But like, it was not in the cards for us to move quickly enough to figure out what 2026

looked like and communicate that.

So yeah, I'm not going to apologize for it.

Russ That's a perfect answer.

Justin Perdue Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm not going to apologize for it because if you got in, it was awesome.

And if you didn't, I'm sorry.

Russ Well, the wild thing is everybody who got in is not on Discord, I don't think.

Because I haven't read any of that.

Justin Perdue Except for Bosco.

My buddy Bosco, he supports anything I do.

I love that guy.

Russ Yeah.

Speaking of Bosco, he had a question and I think I've heard it mentioned a couple other

times.

You're moving the UFO stage from We're in the Woods into Centauru.

Someone just said, well, why not just bring Calliope back?

And I think I know the answer, but I'll let you talk to that.

Justin Perdue Calliope is a trademark name in the sentence.

Russ Yeah.

Walter Productions runs it, right?

Justin Perdue Have to be able to license and get the

permissions to use the name and currently not able to do that.

So we want to create the same vibe as that, but we got to name it ourselves and make it

a little bit of our own and not just copy somebody else.

Russ Talk about Outeroo and some of that programming

and cost savings and all that.

Did that come into the conversation?

I mean, there's a lot happening the last couple of years all over the farm.

Does that stress you guys?

In my view, I would think it would.

Justin Perdue I think that we kind of like, it feels like

to me that we kind of righted the ship on Outeroo going into this past year.

I think it got to be a lot, arguably too much.

We had a lot of stuff happening at certain parts of the day that we were putting resources into

that wasn't being attended at all in some cases.

There were some whole activations like the year that we put the stage over next to group

that basically all weekend it was dead.

So we kind of just spent some time going into this past year

looking at what we were doing out there as a whole.

And it felt like where we landed this year was pretty solid.

What we're hearing from people is we need House of Yes.

We need places to relax during the day.

We need resources like restrooms and ice and food.

And programming is kind of second to that.

And then we're also hearing, especially in some of the circles that we're most active in,

that we want to do stuff.

We being the community.

We want you guys to let us do things.

And we did a lot of that this year and it was sick.

Justin Perdue Expand on that just a little bit I think.

Because that, does that, I think that's cool.

I think it's so cool that people are like wedding parties and of their own music and

whether it's the beer exchange which has been around and is sort of an organized thing versus

church boners do their thing.

You don't necessarily have to touch or do anything with some of those, right?

Just be aware of them.

Is that, I mean, what is-

With some of them, yes.

Some of them require a decent bit of effort.

But all of them are from the brains of families.

From the brains of fans and they are doing the heavy lifting.

Which is, I mean, it lets us do more out there and it lets them be a part of the experience

and put on a party for their fellow campers, which is pretty sick.

Justin Perdue Right.

Speaking of Neaton, you said more amenities potentially for Atteru, just better relaxation areas.

Is that where We're in the Woods is headed as more of like a Grove part two kind of thing?

Is that what I'm understanding?

Neaton Yeah.

Justin Perdue Yeah.

I mean, there's still going to be stuff to interact with in there and it's still going

to be vibey and it's still going to be a little journey to walk through there, especially at night,

which is awesome.

But I think-

Justin Perdue Well, it's a wooded area.

We should, it's a wooded area.

We should use it for some real, some shade and relaxation.

Justin Perdue Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's the gist of it.

And then like if you, you know, you move that stage into Centauru and you,

you, your capacity is so much more flexible.

Like, I mean, I've, I've been to the woods when it's pretty full and I've been out there when

it's too full.

And I mean, the most people that you can really get engaged with the show out there is,

you know, maybe a couple thousand before you start pushing back into the trees too far.

Um, but if you go to that corner over there, I mean, it feels like an amphitheater.

So you can really like put as many people out there as they want to, which is a huge advantage.

And, and it's just, it's not limiting like the woods are.

Justin Perdue Yeah.

My last thought on Outeroo, any thoughts on the Who stage?

You didn't get enough of sample size to know whether it worked out there.

I wouldn't guess, but any thoughts on what you would do at the Who stage?

I don't know what we're doing about the Who stage yet.

I mean, building some of the, you know, some of the pros and cons with the Who stage is it's,

it's kind of, sometimes it has a lot of people at it.

And sometimes the, you know, those bands aren't really getting seen, which is the whole goal of

the stage in the first place.

So I mean, part of it is when you program it, which this year we tried to program it earlier

in the day when there wasn't as much going on and more people were in the campgrounds where

the stage was.

So theoretically you could get larger crowds in front of that stage and help grow those bands,

which is the whole, you know, point of the stage in the first place.

But I don't know, we're obviously like helping launch new artists that we think are awesome

and, you know, fostering talent is, is, and has always been a priority of Bonnaroo.

So I think that that's something that we're thinking about as we're trying to figure out

where everything lands this year.

You know, maybe it is finding a new way to do the Who stage.

Maybe it's something else entirely.

But I think that the goal of what the Who stage does is still a huge priority for us.

And that's all I can really say right now, because we're still trying to figure it out.

But that's, that's like my general vibe on it.

I know people always wonder, especially if you bought a ticket for 2025 because you wanted to

see band XYZ.

How much do you guys try to get some of those people back?

Some of those acts back?

I know because we've done this a long time talking to Benson and his bunch that you guys are

planning, you know, next year, months ago already, certain acts.

Yeah, that's also one of our questions.

Yeah.

So go ahead and ask the question.

Maybe they ask it better than I just did.

Let me find it real quick.

Basically, the question was, are there any plans to get many artists back from 25,

trying to get any of them for the lineup 2026, or are you just trying to book different artists?

Okay, it's kind of two, it's two combos there, but go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, there's already artists that have reached out from this year that want to come back

and play next year.

And we're having those conversations and there's artists that played this year that we would want

to come back next year that haven't reached out and we're going to have those conversations.

And it also just is all that, you know, like we've talked about before, it's also just going to come

down to are these artists touring next year at all?

Sure, sure.

Yeah, it's got to make sense for that.

It's a lot of hypotheticals at this point.

Yeah.

There's definitely going to be bands who were on the line of this year, on the line of next year.

100%.

100%.

Good.

Yeah.

Cool.

Then this is a question for both of you.

Somebody wants to know which performances are both you, Brad and Corey,

personally most upset that you didn't get to see?

The Kinga shows.

Oh, me too.

I think the late night Megadeth, probably up there for me.

That was a damn bummer.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, that's probably up there.

I'm trying to think.

You got to look at the line up you got.

Yeah, I got to refresh.

I know.

I've kind of blocked it out of my mind.

The late night Justice set, that was going to be really special.

Here's what I'll say.

After seeing Olivia Rodrigo at Lollapalooza two nights ago,

that show would have been incredible on the farm.

I think you're right.

I mean, it is a rock and roll show.

Really?

I saw her bring a-

She is not a pop star.

She is a rock and roll star.

I saw she had Cuomo out there from Rivers from Weezer.

They did a little band up there.

I would not have thought anybody was going to say to me sometimes,

you know, Olivia Rodrigo is a rock show.

When you see the show, it's a rock show.

It was very impressive.

She probably had all of 85 or 90,000 people at Lollapalooza watching her.

The Weezer thing was cool because the context was the first show she ever went to was Weezer

as a kid.

Oh, okay. Nice.

So they played two songs with her in the middle of her set.

It was awesome.

So we can expect her in 2016 is what you're saying.

No, I don't know about that.

I'm just saying it was really good.

I think it was really good.

And the Johnية Summit show, he had spent a lot of money to build a personal production

just for Bonnaroo.

He was very excited and it was going to be really special.

And that's one I would say, you know, when the time is right and we can make it,

we can figure it out, he definitely wants to come back and play.

So, cool.

I would love to get him back there because there's like videos of him

going on a run around Adaroo when it was raining.

And he did a pop-up that was actually like four RVs down from mine that I slept through.

But he, I don't know, and he was out there all day on Thursday checking out

some other sets and stuff.

And I don't know, that's just like, that's kind of like the old school,

what I feel like what more artists used to do at Bonnaroo.

That I always like thought was super cool.

So, I love that energy and I'm not an EDM guy really at all.

So, it's just really cool to like see that and have that kind of personality out there on the farm.

So, you mentioned King Giz and there was a lot of hype for their residency.

Any chance maybe if not King Giz, another type of residency,

different artists that could do potentially for 26?

Yeah, I had that question myself.

Yeah, we all agree that that needs to be a thing.

Yeah.

Okay.

We all agree that the residency needs to be a thing.

It's definitely a goal.

It's hard, it's obviously a big lift from the artist.

So, it's a long conversation to get someone to buy into it.

But it's definitely a goal for Brian and the booking team.

Well, for everybody who's banging on you guys for not doing jam anymore,

I mean, there's your place to start right there with the residency kind of thing.

Is a jam band thing.

And what about to the people who are going to say, are you bringing more jam bands?

Speak to them for a minute because I am one of them.

Yeah, we've had some questions about that.

I know you don't like it.

I mean, Daniel Donato, Dogs in a Pile, we got a big goose show coming up.

King Giz fans hate when you say this, but they're not that far off.

No, they're not.

They're really not.

Yeah.

I'm an old school jam guy.

I'm a pretty big fan of King Giz.

So, I mean, this is a multi-genre festival.

You can't do a festival this big with just jam bands anymore.

It's just not a thing.

No, it's not.

So, I will say every single year, there's going to be a good presence to jam on the farm

and there always will be.

Yeah. And one thing to keep in mind on the residency front is

it takes a really special kind of artist to even want to have that conversation with them

because you really need someone who can play three different sets, potentially in three different

spaces sonically, genre-wise.

You don't just want someone who's really popular that's going to just play three different sets

and maybe they switch up the songs.

Like, it takes a really special kind of artist to want to,

for that residency to really have a lot of value.

So, there's a few different ways we can pivot there and we'll hopefully find one of them

and land the plane for 26.

What else, Russ?

Well, let me say real quick because I know we've got to do this and let you guys go.

We're all busy, but I just wanted to say thanks again for that panel thing, Brad.

Thursday into Friday was one of the weirdest 24 hours and I know it was for everybody,

but that was such a great, great event personally.

Amazing to do and then, you know, what happened, what happened.

No, thanks for having me.

That was, I had a great time and I feel like

I feel like the changes, Kelsey was a little afraid at first.

I feel like the changes we made to that nonprofit village and the shade tent were

maybe the best thing we've done in the past few years.

I was so freaking impressed, man.

I mean, I've only kind of glanced at Planet, yeah, Planet Roo over the years and I got there.

I was like, whoa, this is it now?

Wow.

It was very cool.

Very nice.

I just wanted to mention that, but go ahead, Russ.

Well, since you mentioned the Thursday thing that our live podcast, we got to do.

And I know, unfortunately for RooBus and for Roo Ham, you know, they didn't get to do their panels.

Is there a chance they could come back into them next year?

Oh yeah.

Has that been talked about?

Yeah.

I mean, that has not been talked about yet, but we can, we can just go ahead and say yes.

And somebody on our team can figure it out.

Fair enough.

There you go, Kelsey.

Yeah.

Fair enough.

Get to work, get to work, Kelsey and Planet, Planet Roo.

So let's see, a couple other questions.

It was mentioned that, you know, probably going to wait until we,

had the lineup comes out before you start selling tickets.

Does that mean any chance of a lineup coming out sooner this year or next year?

Or just a different timeframe on that?

Or just a different timeframe for selling and?

I think it's too early to say.

Okay.

I will say though, the reasoning behind not selling tickets had nothing to do with trying

to get on sale earlier, like, or announcing the lineup earlier.

Gotcha.

It really just has to do with like how many times in the year we're trying to get people's

attention and say, look, tickets are on sale.

Like they're, it's an attention economy that we're in and you only get so many chances.

Well, that's so true.

For us, it was more about the lowering the frequency of how many times we're sending

you a text or trying to get you to read an Instagram post.

It wasn't necessarily about, you know, shortening any sort of timeline for putting the lineup out.

Gotcha.

And then somebody also asked about any, they heard something about perks for people that

bought 20, 20, 20, 25 tickets.

Of course, I know you gave a hundred percent refund.

That's a pretty good perk right there.

No, I think the plan is, you know, if we're, if we're doing what we've been doing the

last few years where the lineup comes out on like a Monday or Tuesday, and then later in the week,

the tickets go on sale.

There would be a day in the middle there after the lineup, but before a public on sale,

where folks who were ticket holders for this year would get an opportunity to buy at the lowest price.

Okay.

So that's, that's kind of what we're thinking on that.

That seems like a no brainer.

Last one for me real quick and you, and we can still chew it up for a minute, but speaking of price,

are we going to, where are we at on that?

We're going to try to stay where we're at, up a percentage, down a percentage.

What are you, what are you guys thinking?

What are you looking at?

We're going to try and stay where we are unless we feel like there's a really big shift in the value

of the product that we're asking you to pay that price for.

So, um, I, I, we're definitely, we're definitely not increasing prices.

We will, if anything, we will be flat.

It's really just going to depend, Brian, on what comes together, who we can get for,

what, you know, what artists we can get for Thursday.

What does that look like?

I mean, the other headliners, I mean, it's all gonna,

all of that obviously plays into how we value our show year to year.

So that's not really an answer, but it's the only answer I can give you like right now in this moment.

Fair enough.

All right.

First week, we're in the first week of August.

So like I said, a month and a half removed.

How do you guys feel right now?

I feel great.

I did not feel great for about six weeks.

I feel good now because for a minute we were just in a gray area of like, what's even happening?

Like, and now it's like, we know the show's happening.

We know the changes we're making and now we just got to hone all that in

and still make a really great product for the fan.

And I know that we will do that.

It's just gonna take time.

But overall, I feel great.

I mean, June is probably the hardest month that I've had in my life since my dad died,

to be completely honest with you.

Reading way too many compliments, not compliments, definitely not compliments.

Way too many comments on the internet that I was letting take up space on my brain.

Corey, what about you?

I was in a hole for like a couple weeks.

It was bad.

I mean, we publicly said, and I mean this, that I don't know if there's anywhere on the internet

that exists where people can weigh in on whatever decisions that Bonnaroo makes

and how they feel about it that I haven't read.

I don't think it exists though.

I've read tens, 20, 30, 50,000 comments and some of that shit sucked.

But I think you kind of just, you just have to do it.

You have to get a vibe for where people are at.

Some of it's worthless information.

People just being mean or people just sad.

But I think we also learned a lot about sentiment and even specific things

that people thought didn't go as well or went well or want changed next time or

what they want, what they want to happen next year.

So that was, that was a really tough time.

But I'm back at baseline now.

I'm starting to get excited.

I think, I mean, I was really excited when we finally got everything together

and we're able to like fully green light a plan to come back.

That was a good week.

That was a really, really good week actually.

And now we have to figure out how to do it.

You know, so I think one of the, and I've read some of those too,

and I think I've tried to make the point and we have on here.

It's when people write about C3 or, and live nation as if it's some faceless entity

versus it's Brad and Corey.

That's one of the points I've tried to make.

These are people that made this decision.

There's literally like 10 people, maybe Brad, that are like actually involved in making

these decisions and like, we're literally just like doing our best as humans.

Yeah, our, some of our surveys fucking suck.

And some of the questions were terrible, but it's because it was my dumb ass making them.

Like, I'm literally just trying to like figure out what people want, you know?

Like we're not experts at everything.

And that's how we're bought.

We're Bonnaroo fans that somehow just accidentally ended up being very important

in the decision making process.

Do you actually want some like corporate big wigs, like making your festival or do you want

like a bunch of idiots like us doing it?

I think it's team idiot.

So team idiot.

That's getting clipped.

I know.

You're goddamn right.

I don't want that to get clipped.

Corey, why'd you say it?

It's happening now.

I love it.

But it's important.

It is.

All right, Corey, one last thing.

I know Bootscootin Boogie Nights has a pretty big tour coming up.

Do you want to plug that real quick?

Yeah, you guys are getting some nice audiences, man.

When you first Bonnaroo 26 confirmation, I'm saying it.

It's the welcoming party with Bootscootin Boogie Nights.

Oh yeah, that would be a flop.

I don't think that would go too well.

The band's doing good.

I'm only able to do some of those shows now that I have a family and there's a really,

really great guy that I'm good friends with.

His name's Michael Jones.

He's actually got a project called Lazarus Lake that's really good.

He just dropped a record.

It's a really good country record, but he fills in for me when I'm out.

And does a fantastic job.

But yeah, we've got a massive fall tour.

I'll be on some of those dates.

I'm going to try to tell people sometime soon which ones it's going to be.

But yeah, if you like 90s country, you should go to a Bootscootin Boogie Nights.

It's a pretty good time.

It's a big time.

It's a big time.

Yeah, it is.

All right, Brad, Corey, what do we touch everything that you guys,

we tick all the boxes on your list.

Is there anything else you wanted to make sure to get into and mention?

I thought you guys would ask some harder questions, honestly.

I don't know what they would be, but I think we covered everything

that I expected that we would talk about.

I mean, we could pile on, but it sucked for everybody.

I can turn into a comment section real quick, Brad.

Don't do that.

No, I think we touched everything.

I mean, like we said, there will be follow-ups here because a lot of the things for next year,

we still just don't have the final answer on yet.

So I think we've given you everything that we have up to this point.

I don't think there's any information that Corey and I know at the moment that you guys don't,

other than what our artists were talking to, but outside of that.

So it's not lost on us that your time is valuable,

and we appreciate you giving it to us when you do.

Absolutely.

Just real quick, I know a smaller or you're cutting out some of the camping areas,

but the camps themselves, any major changes there?

The a la carte thing that you went to a couple of three years ago seems to be working.

People like it.

I know you tweak and twist and it gets bigger or smaller, but any major changes?

I don't foresee any major inventory or what's the word I'm looking for, like product changes.

I think everything is going to be a rinse and repeat of this year,

as far as the different options.

Like the buying experience anyways.

Yes.

And I would expect the carpool thing to be a permanent.

I think that's probably going to, in some form or fashion, be a permanent thing.

Oh, one day ticket sales.

We didn't ask about that.

Stays?

Yeah, I think it'll stay.

Like we've said, it's a way for us to get people's foot in the door for Bonnaroo.

It's a really important marketing point for that.

It's the lowest barrier of entry that we have to come experience the show.

And the amount we can sell and where they park and stuff like that might change,

but the option of being able to buy it, I think is going to stick around.

I think that's a good idea.

I view that as a feeder program.

It's a really small percentage of the total capacity for that day.

And I will say, if you were trying out a one-day ticket for the first time on Friday,

I know that that experience was not a fun one.

So I would definitely ask those people to definitely consider giving us another shot next year.

That was worst case scenario.

And I think if they give it another run, they'll have a really good time.

All right.

Thank you guys both so much.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you guys.

Good talking to you all.

Glad we could catch up.

Yeah, it was fun.

For sure.

All right.

Hope to have you back on sometime.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

Thanks everybody for listening.