Bonnaroo isn't just about the music - camping is a huge part of the experience, and that's the focus of this week's episode of The What Podcast. Listeners recently submitted their top camping questions on our Discord server, and we brought in Brad Parker, Festival Director for C3 Presents, to get the answers straight from the source. Brad breaks down the biggest updates for 2025, including improved amenities, new camping options, re-entry policies, and safety enhancements. Whether you're a first-timer or a seasoned Roo veteran, this episode is packed with must-know info to help you prepare for the farm.
But that's not all! We also break some news about the brand-new Infinity Stage coming to Bonnaroo and its location on The Farm, plus we dive into the "Roo Clues" that Shaky Knees has been teasing about their lineup. Huge thanks to Brad for joining us and answering so many listener questions - this episode is jam-packed with insights you won't want to miss!
Topic: Bonnaroo
Guest: Brad Parker
00:00 | Intro |
01:17 | Brad's grievances |
13:28 | Camping at Bonnaroo |
21:20 | Single-day tickets |
26:57 | Moon Colony |
31:47 | Re-entry policy and fee |
37:19 | Changing accommodations and transferring passes |
43:33 | RV parking |
46:59 | How to park closest to Centeroo |
49:03 | What time do gates open on Tuesday |
52:17 | Groop camping additions |
53:34 | Day parking |
55:51 | Horse patrols and extra security |
01:06:14 | Brad's camping hacks and how to stay cool |
01:09:44 | Prescription medications |
01:12:45 | Infinity Stage |
01:14:11 | Has anyone bought the Insider package? |
01:18:16 | Billy Strings in Nashville |
01:21:39 | Shaky Knees dropping clues |
01:24:53 | Outro |
So, couple of things. The first one will just knock the easy one off.
Brian, I am not Festive Owl.
That's what I'm saying.
But I would like to get on the record.
Well, of course that's what you're going to say, Brad.
But yes, OK, OK.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the What Podcast.
I'm Brad. That's Brad. That's Brad. And that's Brad.
This is a special episode.
It's a special episode of the show.
A long time listeners will understand why I'm referencing everyone as Brad.
But I'm Barry. That's Russ. That's Brian. That's Brad Parker.
Director of what marketing?
Not marketing, the Festives or C3, right?
Festival director.
And I think we're losing you a little bit there, Barry.
Yeah, we got you. We got you. We're good.
We might have to kick you off the show here before it's all sudden done.
But it's totally cool. That's fine.
I'm going to do as little talking as I can, because what we want to do is here, Brad.
Brad is with us today because we wanted to talk about a lot of people
on the socials and have a lot of questions about camping at Boddaroos.
And so we wanted to go to the man who can answer those questions. So.
Where do you want to start, Brad?
Well, if it's OK, I'd like to start on some non-camping things.
Would love that. Yes, go for it.
So you guys know I'm a big, big fan of the show.
So I listen to every episode.
You might not believe me, but I do every week.
I don't believe you. But go ahead.
It takes it takes me a couple of days,
but I listen to it from my garage to when I park at my office
and I do that every day, going home or to work until I finish the episode.
So it usually nice.
Usually takes me three days because I have a short drive, but
I do. So I just made a list on Friday.
I went through and made a list of things.
We love a list, Brad. We love a list.
Well, I know you talk a lot about prep, Brian.
So I mean, I came prepared for today's podcast.
That's all I got right there.
So a couple of things.
The first one will just knock the easy one off.
Brian, I am not Festive Owl.
But I would like to get on the record.
Well, of course, that's what you're going to say, Brad.
But yes. OK, OK. I'm not.
And I you know, at Bonnaroo, what I may do is allow you to see me
and the Festive Owl in the same room at the same time.
Well, that would be breaking news of all breaking news.
I might be able to arrange that. OK. All right.
Something interesting that came up.
With the other Brad war for doing in Bonnaroo nomenclature,
the other Brad or other asshole friend, Brad.
Yeah, exactly.
One of the things that came up on your all's episode was
that I thought was interesting and maybe not 100 percent correct.
And I just wanted to kind of grow, throw it out there was.
He talked about, you know, Brad kind of made the assumption
that a company like C3 would would be aggregating
a lot of ticket data to make the assumption of
there are Luke Combs and Dom Dalla fans, I think was the example that he
that he that he used as far as like overlap.
And I wish we were that smart.
I wish we were using that tons of ticket buyer data.
The truth is, as you've probably seen with a lot of things in the news,
like we have to be very careful with what how we're looking into data,
how we're sharing it within the company or outside the company,
whether it be Ticketmaster or wherever the information is coming from.
So I wish that we were using more of that data to our advantage
when it comes to booking a show like Bonnaroo.
But it's not. The truth is, and I think I talked a little bit about this
whenever we were maybe hinting at a country headliner.
I can't remember if we had talked about that before the lineup came out. But yeah.
You did. The truth.
The truth there with those two specific examples is that, you know,
the EDM scene is undeniably a new part of our core audience.
The underground counterculture scene of electronic music is is, you know,
kind of like the jam scene of the early 2000s, like it's a very
counterculture movement.
It's kind of like a silent majority, I would call it,
even though it's not very silent anymore.
And then with Luke, it was kind of going back to the roots of our name,
which I think we talked about, which is the best in the streets.
Bonnaroo's always tried to offer, what's the hottest thing right now?
Not what was hot in 2005 and now we're going to offer it again,
but what's hot right now?
And you can look at any metric out there and see that country music
is undeniably the largest, most commercial it's ever been,
globally and domestically.
So these were not necessarily driven by seeing overlap in fans,
but just by looking at what is the hottest stuff that's out there right now.
And electronic and country are are towards the top of the list.
I mean, you've got Post Malone putting out a country record, right?
You've got the biggest art. You've got Beyonce winning a country Grammy.
Chapel did a country song.
And I've heard that that may be leading to an album.
And Lana Del Rey is looking at a country album.
Country has the attention of everyone.
And so for us as Bonnaroo to ignore that completely,
I think would be a little bit of us not doing our jobs correctly.
So that was a long way to say there's no magic ticket
data machine that we're tapping into.
We're really a lot of this still guys with Bonnaroo is like gut.
Like we're going with our gut to figure out what's going to work.
Like there I promise you, there is no data point that says book
Insane Clown Posse and Luke Holmes on the same day.
I promise you that that data does not exist.
I believe I believe that.
And then one last thing and then we can get into camping.
This is perfect, too, because I used my 10 minutes to just talk about my own shit.
So that way you guys can talk about what you want to talk about.
We got all day, man.
Sounds like the other Brad, too.
I know, right? There's a lot of we have a Brad's have a lot of things in common.
Yeah. The last one that I want to point out,
because I feel like this comes up a lot and I don't know if it's necessarily a fair
characterization is just.
You hear a lot about.
Festival headliners like you all mentioned the Govball
and Bonnaroo lineups a lot.
And I think that that's a fair thing to to to pay attention to and to look at.
I think that the reasoning behind that is what's maybe not too fair.
There's a lot there's a lot of this notion that goes around that,
you know, big companies like Nation C3, like the reason we repeat headliners
is because we go and put these package deals together and it's what financially
makes the most sense.
That's not necessarily true.
I don't feel like there's a lot of
times when we get a crazy discount because we're going to go offer someone
five festivals instead of one.
There is a relationship key to it, right?
We have agents and artists that we like to work with.
So bringing them more business helps that move that relationship forward.
But the reason the reason I want to bring it up is because
it's really an inventory issue on the artist side.
There's a limited number of artists that can play these size shows, right,
and be true headliners.
And we've talked I've talked before about us making the effort to kind of move
into a new class of of headliners, taking the risk on people like Fred and Hosier,
who are undeniably big artists, but they've just never optically been seen
in that position from a fan perspective.
So there's always a little pushback.
But this has always been the thing.
Like I pulled up the other day whenever I heard,
I think Brad talking about it on your last episode.
If you go back to 2010, 2015 and look at Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Govball,
they were all happening.
They were unrelated at the time.
Govball was independent.
Lollapalooza was C3.
AC was doing Bonnaroo.
But if you look at the top 20 acts on those on those shows,
it's a 50% overlap, if not more.
The reason I think that it's there's so much more attention to it now is because
you see every festival lineup when it comes out within 10 minutes.
The data is instantly in your phone.
15, 20 years ago, you had to make an effort to see the lineup for
a festival that happened a thousand miles away from where you live, right?
Yeah, they were more regional then.
I think the frequency of seeing these acts is just so
more now and so you lean in to say, they just booked the same bands.
It's like, no, it's always been that.
But the overlap of people in New York City that are gonna go see Govball and
the people that are gonna drive to Bonnaroo is a very, very,
very small overlap of people.
It's a completely different customer.
So if the same three artists are right for both of those in one year,
then that's how sometimes it ends up like the way it did with Govball this year,
I think.
About that, when you guys see Govball and in this case,
I know there's been overlap, but this one, it struck us as more than usual.
My question is, does that concern you guys at all, the overlap?
I mean, I understand what you're saying about inventory and
I appreciate your answer.
But does it concern you guys at all when you see the different lineups?
I don't, well, Brian, did you wanna add anything?
I think I got all of that, what he's asking.
Did you wanna add anything to that?
If you wanna just tag this, spend a tiny amount on it, if you want.
You said the headliners are harder to get or maybe they always have been.
Is that a dollar thing because they can make more money doing their own full
shows or is it a little more complicated than that?
That's as simple as I had on that one.
No, that's a great question.
The dollar thing really comes into play about, when we talk about legacy artists.
We used to have Paul McCartney, Elton John,
all of those artists play festivals like Bonnaroo.
And you don't see that anymore really on any festival, regardless of its size,
because those artists can make way more money playing their own shows.
I think what I'm saying is, you don't have a ton of touring acts
as an option that can purely do the amount of sales that you need
for them to headline an 80,000, 50 to 80,000 person festival, right?
That has to be an act that is doing either a lot of arenas or
maybe they've even stepped into playing stadiums.
And there's just not, you're talking about, my guess would be 20 to 25 artists
in the whole world that are doing regular stadium business.
And some of those are international acts that you're not gonna
necessarily make sense of for your festival.
Like Bad Bunny does crazy business, right?
But Bad Bunny doesn't make sense on every show.
So you even lose some of the artists that are options for you just based on the genre
that they and the fan that they're selling tickets to.
Barry, to your question, it doesn't concern us.
I'm glad that we announced before them because I think that Bonnaroo
gets to be a preview for music fans for the whole year about what kind of artists
they're gonna see touring.
I don't care that we're necessarily the only ones, but I do like that we're first.
I think that while there is a very small amount of people that are making
the choice between a Lala or a Bonnaroo or a Govball, right?
It's a very small cross section of fans.
I think that there is something to the magic of you're the one opening your
present first on Christmas Day.
Even if you know everybody else is getting the same present.
Yeah, you're all getting the rock them, sock them robots.
It's just you got them first.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I like being that.
I like being first.
I don't, I have no concern that we share on some years, even all three
headliners, you know, historically we've shared, I think at least one with Govball.
All three is pretty rare.
That's just how it shook out for this year, but it doesn't concern me at all.
I'm glad that we're the first ones out.
Well, to jump right into camping, this is a more generic question for you specifically.
I don't know your long-term history with the festival.
I know your recent history with the festival.
Have you ever camped at Bonnaroo in GA and general admission?
Have you ever done that?
I camped in GA for three, the first three years I attended as a fan.
And then what years were those?
That was 2009.
And then, uh, well, I take that back.
I can't GA in 2009.
That was my first time as a fan.
2012, I can't GA.
2013 was my first year at AC.
I worked the festival, but I wasn't, uh, I wasn't, I was low enough on the
totem pole that I still camped that year, but it was in staff camping,
which is pretty much GA camp.
Hey, uh, it's a pretty big thing.
Um, so those, those were the three years that I've camped.
And then I was either in an RV or a hotel for every year after that.
So, you know, this firsthand, that's good.
We, we haven't done it in a while.
Um, I I've done it many times, but it's been a very long time.
But so you should say nine, 12, 13 ish.
That is kind of a transformational period of the camping environment,
of the ethos of it from the, you know, it used to be just come on in and let's
see how quickly we can get you in a little spray painted spot, you know?
And, and now it's far more complicated than that.
And that was kind of the, if my memory is serving right.
When that transition was happening to where what we're now know as a,
a wonderland of, of, of opportunity, not just a place to park your car and sleep
and hang out with your friends when you're not in center.
Rue.
Um, how has that challenge been staffing wise security wise is to just not be
Hey park, okay, cool.
Done with you park.
Okay, cool.
Done with you.
It's gotta be a lot more to it than that.
That's the biggest, that's what makes Bonnaroo so challenging compared to other
shows camping element.
We, we spend more money on the campgrounds than we do on, um, the bands.
And that's some of that, some of that is post, some of that is post
pandemic inflation, right?
We've seen the cost of things like fencing and lumber and porta
potties like all just continue to kind of skyrocket and, and we, we pay for all
that and a lot of it we pay, you know, we, we try, we don't, we don't own it.
We rent it.
So it's a cost that we just incur every year.
Um, the, I think you're right.
I think probably 2014, 2012 to 2015 is when we, is when there started to be
some real more investment, um, into the experience out there.
I think what we did, I shouldn't say we, um, I think what happened was at first
we invested in, there needs to be more stuff going on in the campgrounds.
You need to be able to get better food.
You need to be able to, uh, watch a band in a coffee shop.
If you don't want to go all the way into center at 2 PM, like that was the
first thought I think, cause we had this magic math that said, you know, at any
given time, like 20% of our fans are not in Centro, they're, they're out in the
campgrounds doing something.
So if we know they're there, what, what are we offering them to do?
I think from 2019 to now we've kind of refocused on the necessities
of life in the campgrounds.
We want to make, we want to offer more showers.
We want to offer more bathrooms.
We want to make the bathrooms cleaner.
We want to pave more roads.
So you're not inhaling dust.
We want to put more showers.
We want to have a good general store.
I don't know if you all went to our new general store last year.
We, I mean, a hundred times better than what we've ever offered.
I mean, I remember the old general store very, very well, but yeah,
this one was like walking into a Walgreens.
I mean, the company, the company that we hired, it's an independent company and
they go all across the country and they just make general stores for festivals.
And their prices, their pricing is very reasonable.
They have anything you want from beer to paper towels to, you know, if you need
high, high stuff for hygiene, soap, stuff like that, toothpaste.
And we got a ton of great feedback on that.
So continuing, I think what you'll see this year is that we're going to continue
to maybe not focus on who are the big bands that we're having do a pop-up show
in the campgrounds, but are we making it easy for people to live there for four
or five days that that is like where our focus is right now?
Well, is it fair to say, say you're not going to focus on an entertainment
standpoint of bands and those things, but is it fair to say you've almost like
you've contracted that out without by word of mouth and handshake are the
patrons are creating that environment themselves to a lot of degrees.
So it sounds like you don't really need to focus on that as much outside of
maybe the plazas like where those are very curated.
Yeah.
The plazas will still continue to do, you know, what we want to like, what we
want to do that we think is very Bonnaroo like at where in the woods this year,
you're going to see some more cool programming with NASA.
You're going to see kind of a Southern DJ takeover where we're going to have
collectives that represent sort of different cultural hubs of the South take
over for hours and where in the woods you kind of showcase a different style.
So you'll see a bunch of guys from Atlanta one day, you'll see guys from
New Orleans one day, you'll see guys from Miami one day.
And so those are the, those are like the cultural community things that we'll
keep investing in as a festival and then leaning in on, on people in group and
other people that reach out to us and say, Hey, we have a cool idea.
We just need you to help us execute it.
And then Corey and I try our best to do that.
Right.
We've talked about some of the, some of the challenges there with
insurance and things like that.
But Corey and I are yes men.
So we always lead with, okay, let us go figure out what we have to do to make
this happen rather than, Oh, this just seems like a lot of, you know, exposure
and a lot of work that we don't want to have to deal with.
But you're right, Brian.
I mean, the fans program to an extent themselves.
I mean, we've had people reach out and say, we want to host a kickball tournament.
Can you give us enough grass?
Can you give us enough grass that we can play a kickball game?
And that that's challenging, right?
Cause we need grass to let people camp on, but
the short answer to that.
No, we've tried to figure, we've tried to figure it out, but the truth is the grass
we could give them is not convenient to where they are.
So they would have to be going, you know, to a complete different part of the camp
ground to participate.
And so, but there's, there's stuff like that all the time that people reach out
and we, we always want to make it happen.
So if you have those ideas, if you're listening to this podcast and you have
those ideas, reach out to us.
Like, there's tons of different ways we look at Instagram DMs, you can go to
info at bonnaroo.com.
That's a real person that looks at that email.
It's not just a chat GPT bot that's responding to your question.
So, um, reach out to us if you got ideas on programming.
Well, the imagination and the creativity of the, of the Bonnaroo, uh, Bonnarooian
universe is pretty strong and it, it comes from the spirit of the festival all the
way around.
It's one of the things that fascinates me the most, something I probably should
have said right off the bat before we got into camping, cause this is not a
camping question and I'm not even going to word it as a question as much.
I'm just going to ask you to speak to it.
If you listen to the show, like you say you do, you know what our opinions
probably are on the one day tickets, as far as what we're going to immediately
guess as to why all of a sudden we have the one day tickets.
Um, would you speak to that decision that recently, uh, uh, was implemented in
last week, week or so?
I would love to speak on one day tickets.
Let's go.
I would love to, I would love to get my thoughts on that because I tried to in
discord, but it only pierces the people that always agree with me anyways.
So I need to get out to the, I need to get out to the haters in some
former fashion.
Um, so the first thing I'll say is the, the overall financial health, I'll
call it of the, of the event or the number of sales that are happening with
four day people camping is not indicative of any decision made around single days.
Okay.
That's what we would get.
That's what we would assume without, you know, maybe recklessly,
the single day tickets.
I'm trying to think of a way to word this that I won't get in trouble out of
co out of COVID we, we saw that single day tickets were a way to help us turn
this festival in the right direction financially because of all the challenges
we had through COVID and that I mentioned previously in this episode, we
found that daily tickets are a way to help us correct some of that issue
because we have a lot less expenses tied to people that come for one day than
people that come for five days.
They don't, they don't use the showers.
They don't use the bathrooms as much.
They there's all of these things that they resources that campers put a strain
on, right?
I was gonna say less strain on the infrastructure.
And that cost, that, that costs a lot of money.
And so the single days we found was a way that we could kind of work around that.
And so what we've done is we've decided here's a capacity of Bonnaroo for camping.
And here's a capacity on top of that number that can be for daily people.
And that number for camping is obviously not as big as what it used to be because
we have to take up some of that inventory of campers for the one day ticket
holders strictly from a capacity perspective, right?
So that is what that is.
That's what single days are.
And the thing, the one thing I will try not to get on my soapbox, but.
You can stand on it.
I don't care.
Yeah.
The people that I see commenting everywhere that one day ticket holders kill the vibe
and they're the worst and all of this stuff.
I'm glad you're going here.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I'm go, oh, I'm going in.
The thing that I want to say is the percentage of people that you're seeing.
Like if you looked at all the tickets we sell, the daily ticket holder percentage
is a single percentage, it's less than 10.
So if you're going to tell me that a bunch of people ruin your day and that you've
identified 4% of the people that are on the farm with you, and you just know that
those are the people that ruin your day are single ticket buyers, you're just making
it up.
Like it's, if I put you in a room with a hundred people, you're not going to find
the three.
You know what I'm saying?
Like it's just, and if you're on a farm with 50, 60, 70,000 people, that
statistically the data would say, whoever ruined your vibe is also a camper.
Like that's the math would support that claim.
Or it was you and you forgot it was you.
Yeah, exactly.
So I guess the reason you're in Centerville, you're not going to know unless you look at
their wristband, you know, you can't tell who's here one day, who's day four days.
You know, and the reason I don't like that narrative is because one, statistically it's
not accurate.
And two, it really turns new fans off from wanting to come try the show.
And that's why we have daily tickets.
Like my hope is that someone buys a daily ticket, has such a great time that they do
come back the next year and want to camp.
Well, I was going to ask you if you have any numbers on that.
Do you know how many percent of one day ticket buyers convert to a full weekend?
We haven't had enough years, I don't think, of data.
That sample size is small.
Right.
The sample size is too small.
But I know anecdotally through stories that those people do exist.
So at some point we'll be able to track data on that.
But like the least Bonnarooian thing you can do is turn someone off to come into the
show. And the narrative of if you're a single ticket buyer and you come to the show,
you're ruining the event for the rest of everyone.
That would make me not want to go.
Right. I don't want that label on me.
I don't want to be there.
People thinking I'm ruining the vibe.
So that that is something that I try to that's a narrative that I try to squash whenever
I whenever I see it, if I can, without getting myself in too much trouble or arguing with
anonymous Reddit bots.
Sure.
Well, I don't want to spend too much time on it.
Because I want to see if I can.
I always cross.
I know you've got to compile.
We had some of the questions with this book.
Whatever you got on this.
I got a ton of questions compiled.
So whenever you jump into a couple of those and we'll go for see what that takes us.
Let's do it.
OK, ready.
So I kind of combine some of these and grouped them in.
The first one I've got here is we've got some questions about Moon Colony, which I
believe is kind of like the pre-pitched tent option that you walk in and your tents are
already set up.
Is that right?
Moon Colony is pre-pitched options.
There's also the new power car camping option.
There's a few non-pre-pitched options in Moon Colony, but a majority of it is pre-pitched.
OK.
First question was somebody asking about more amenities in there.
They said it was a hike to get ice and then make it back to camp before it melted.
And then somebody was also asking, speaking of like the powered option, exactly how much
can it handle?
Like could you run a blender, blow dryer, DJ set up?
You know, like and then the other question was, is there an option to swap out two twin
cuts for a queen if they wanted?
Or is there room outside of the tent to set up a canopy or an easy up?
Or does the tent take up the entire spot?
So OK, so let me hit a few of those.
Let me hit the easy ones first.
For amenities question, we just put together a budget and got it approved for probably
the largest single year improvement to bathrooms, showers, all of that stuff that you'll see
in Bonnaroo ever.
So last year to this year is going to be a night and day thing.
You're going to see literally double the amount of bathroom locations and you're going to
see increased staffing cleaning those areas.
You're going to see shade implemented in those areas.
So you're going to see a huge night and day difference there.
As far as like ice and things like that that aren't necessarily related to maybe
amenities, we're looking at expanding that general store, meaning multiple locations.
And I think that a small satellite location in Moon Colony would make sense.
OK, can't commit to that 100 percent yet, but it is I'm just acknowledging that it's
on our it's on our minds and on our list.
The car camping with power.
That is meant to do really, I would call it anything that takes up the same or less power
as like a microwave.
Small appliances, charger phone, box fan, laptops, small refrigerators.
But it's not really meant to take a ton of power like plugging in an audio system or
a full size refrigerator or anything like that.
We are setting up some options there and at the toll booth to charge electric vehicles.
I'm just throwing that out there because I know that that's been a question I've seen
pop up. So we'll have an option for people that want to, you know, plug in their Tesla
or Prius or whatever and get a little boost through the weekend.
We're looking at options to set those up around some key locations.
And then the last one was about the space outside the tent.
You have it. You have an area to, you know, if you wanted to set up tables and stuff
outside your car that you could host your food and stuff on like you've got some room,
I wouldn't say...
Well, let me say this.
You've got room for a canopy if you and your neighbor are going to be friends.
Like because you might encroach a little bit on their space depending upon the size of
the canopy. But I would say that you've got room to do that.
And then what was the last one, Taka?
Was it about swapping out the cot sizes for, you know, maybe a couple of twins to a queen?
Yeah, let me look at something real quick.
I'm going to pull up my cheat sheet because I think...
I think when you buy that, it makes you choose.
Yeah, I think somebody did comment that said you can choose between when you buy that.
When you purchase it on the website, there is a double twin and a queen option.
So you just have to choose which one you want.
OK.
So think real hard, make your decision, move along.
Yeah.
Yeah. And listen, I mean, I'm not...
I hope that a lot of people can make this decision ahead of time, but
Bonnaroo is all about the pivot.
We want to be accommodating when we can.
So if somebody shows up and they decide they'd rather have two twins instead of a queen,
like our team can probably help them out.
It's more about us being able to understand on the front what's the inventory that we
need to have on site.
Right. So if everybody orders queens and then everybody decides they want twins, like
that's not going to work for us.
But if there's some overlap in the middle, then that's going to be we'll be able to take
care of that. Cool.
Let me jump in here real quick before you go to your next one on the list, Taco, because
this is one I've when I first heard it, I don't I my thoughts on have changed a little
bit, but this goes back to when I was regularly coming in in GA.
And even if I was spending time in the in the Radio Bonnaroo areas and on foot, I was
still parking usually in the GA and the reentry policy, which there wasn't one.
You just leave and come, leave and come, leave and I was the leave and come guy all the
time from 2005 and four and nine and 14 and 15.
And it was a really big part of my experience because of maybe lack of the amenities then.
And maybe there was things I couldn't get.
Maybe this general store solves a lot of that.
Also, we live close.
I might run home for a few hours.
You know, I did that regularly.
Well, just the reentry policy this year isn't an actual policy.
And just speak to that.
So just like anything, I'm glad you brought it up.
Yeah, that was one of our questions.
Just like any policy, there's going to be leniency, right?
It's not a steadfast black and white rule.
The point behind this.
Is we need to eliminate leisure trips of people coming in and out.
That's happening.
One, during the highest traffic ingress time.
Yeah, we have a lot of people Wednesday and Thursday trying to go out whenever we've got
everybody trying to come in.
That causes real issues and it slows everybody down.
So that's the first thing we're trying to eliminate that.
Like if you need to leave because you didn't realize that you were out of your blood
pressure medication.
Right here.
Yeah.
We're going to make, we're going to have certain exceptions, right?
For medical reasons.
If you are trying to run and get a five dollar box at Taco Bell, you're going to have to
pay up.
Like you're going to have to pay.
And we're working on, you know, that money is, this isn't a cash grab.
That money is going to go towards sustainability and greening projects and NPO stuff that
we're doing.
It's not a revenue center for the festival itself.
So is that a discretionary decision?
But depending on who's handling the tolls, the toll booths of in and out activity.
I mean, yeah.
So you won't be, you'll be charged when you come back in.
So your car is marked.
So that's going to happen one way or another.
Yeah. And so here.
So somebody pulls up to the toll booth, right?
And our security people will be able to see this car has already been sold.
And they'll be able to see that this car has been searched because they marked the cars
that had been searched already.
So they'll be able to see, okay, this car has been searched already.
They need to go to the reentry lane.
If that person pulls up and says, here's my bag from Walgreens.
Here's a receipt from 20 minutes ago with my blood pressure medication or an hour ago
or whatever.
Yeah, we're going to make an exception.
But if you tell us that you had to go because you had a life threatening thing you need
to pay a tax of course in your bag.
You're going to flip flops.
Yeah.
And that might be life or death.
You're going to pay the fee.
So it is discretionary to a certain point.
And I like that.
I do too.
I like there to be people that you trust, hopefully that you're able to have a coalition
enough.
I know it's brutal trying to keep those toll booths and those security.
I know that's difficult to keep staffed with people that you can trust and people that
you know that have been with you guys because a lot of your volunteers and a lot of these
workers have been doing this for years.
I like them to be able to say, you know what?
I can see this situation and this is important.
And we're going to facilitate this.
If you want Taco Bell, you can go on Monday.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gordita Crunch ain't going anywhere.
And the other thing too, sorry, Barry, I'll pass it to you next just so we're not talking
on probably each other.
But the other thing I just want to add to that is it also just causes a very
unsafe environment for all of the pedestrian foot traffic that we're going on.
It does.
There's been so many times that I've seen a pickup truck driving close enough to the
arch that it made me very uncomfortable because of how many people were on the road.
And you've got a truck going two miles an hour in the middle of all that.
And listen, I'm not saying these people are intentionally trying to hurt anyone, but it
can happen very easily even if you're thinking about how to not make it happen.
So that's another thought process behind it.
We're not trying to just be a greedy, evil corporation that wants to take your money
because you had to leave.
That's not what it's about.
Yeah.
How much is the fee was one of the questions that you have that said yet.
I think we updated the website to have the info, but I think it's $40.
Okay.
Check the website.
It's enough to make you reconsider that $5 box just got expensive.
Yeah, it's a $45 box.
Yeah, that makes sense.
The other thing you've got to think about too is like Brian saying, the staff we have
working at the toll booth, right?
Every car we search, there's a cost associated with that.
So if we're searching your car three or four times, we're spending money that's unnecessary
Yeah.
For to some extent.
So what were you going to say, Barry?
Well, it was just one of the things I've seen and I don't have a specific question,
but like you sort of alluded to people changing their mind wanting to go from twin to pleads.
First of all, I can't imagine wanting a complete car because I don't want anybody touching
me in that 155 degree weather, but that's a separate issue.
How easy is it for somebody, you know, maybe got early, but free free sale tickets,
you know, for Christmas and now is wanting to change their, their all like card options a little bit.
Changing it now is easy.
Changing it next month is easy.
Changing it when you show up on site is not easy.
So if you reach out now to info.bonnaroo.com and tell them what the deal is,
we'll get you swapped out.
It takes a second because technically what we have to do is refund your other order and then
process the new one.
Even if they cost the same amount of money, like we just have to do it for inventory tracking
purposes, but our team will take care of you.
So if you reach out right now, as long as what you're asking for, we have still available or
the option to then we'll do it.
No question.
To that, while we're on that subject, I saw this from either Reddit or Discord.
Somebody asking about transferring camping passes.
Yes.
Never really thought about that myself, but, but in the same vein as we transfer concert tickets
from friend to friend, I can't go anymore.
I bought two, don't know what to do with this other one.
Is that an option?
I think the answer to that is no immediately, but maybe it's not.
And is it something that's been discussed?
You're talking about I buy a camping pass and then I'm no longer going.
So I want to give it to someone else.
That's something that I'm not talking about it.
I'm going from the discord.
That's what they were asking.
Yeah.
The question was, uh, yeah, is there ever going to be an option to transfer camping
purchases similar to tickets?
So I guess in the same way that you could buy a ticket and then transfer it to someone
else, can you do that?
Via email, via, via through the website, those kinds of things.
What you're telling me is that the scalper bots have now figured out they want to, uh,
scalp our camping options.
It sounds like it, doesn't it?
Yeah, it does come my way.
That would be a thing where what you would do is the short answer is there's not an easy
way to do it.
But if you reached out to us, I think what we would do is we would manually, I think
we would manually do it.
If you reached out to us and told us the circumstances, but it's not like, it's not
like, uh, it's not as easy as if you have a ticket in your ticket master, right?
And you're going to send it to someone else's email.
Like it's, it's not, it's not that easy or intuitive.
Maybe it doesn't need to be, but if you want, if, if I have it in my hand, it gets sent
to me, the festivals next week and I don't need it.
And my buddy's right here.
I'm like, here, do you want this?
Like, is that simple?
Correct?
It's, it's not tied to your social security number.
You're not checking your, if you, if you physically have it, yeah.
Then you're in.
Then, then if someone shows up with a camping pass, that's valid.
Yeah.
It's not like we're checking your ID to match what's on the camper.
Yeah.
I think the question was just geared to because ever most people, especially young
people all operate in transferring, you know, via this and, and so they're probably
thinking, well, I want to give it to my buddy in Missouri, but how the hell do I do that?
I think that might've been the crux of the question.
The only one that, the only caveat there is that I think this year for day parking,
for people that are just coming into park for the day, I think we're moving that to
a digital ticket so that we're cutting down a lot of waste of printing materials.
That would be one that you would have to re, you would just need to get a refund and have
your friend purchase their own.
Because we, there won't be a physical pass to give to someone else.
Do you know how much those day camping passes are at this point?
The day parking, I think is 50 bucks.
Geez.
That used to be my life, man.
Yeah.
I used to skirt everything, man.
I day park over here.
I do all of this.
I ain't paying anything for anything.
You guys got a lot of stuff that you got at a good market value.
Very good market value.
And then learning all the tricks to get around all the small value we still don't want to
have to pay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I can...
Still bitched about it.
Can you believe they're doing this to us this year?
We've been coming here our whole lives.
There was a second part to that question about transferring.
He was also asking on, as far as the reentry fee, perhaps nine, nine through one should
be exempted was the question.
One of the perks of this area is to be able to safely and easily get to town for supplies.
I think that we...
Don't hold me to this.
I'll follow up.
I think that we decided that nine through one would have a certain number of reentry
that wasn't charged.
And then after a certain amount, it was like if you were just abusing it, like leaving
twice a day.
But I need to follow up with my team on where we landed on that.
But that's a great flag.
For the logistics of anybody who's about to do nine, three, one potentially or looking
to get into that camping space, I mean, there's just a little back road that gets you right
kind of where you're trying to get to go.
It's not quite the same as leaving the main gates and then having to snake through the
town and get through traffic.
If you want a Starbucks, it ain't going to take you more than about three minutes to
get down there and do that.
I don't know if that matters to your decision, but it is different and it should be considered
different.
Plus, this is a very, very premium product.
I would think that a little extra coming with a premium product would not be unreasonable
and I would be...
I completely think that was the right decision to make.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah.
Ross, wasn't there a question about RV and power?
Because you guys have added like hookups like you would find in a KOA or whatever.
But something changed right there as far as the cost.
Oh, I think it was about...
I looked through the Discord.
I think it was about, will you know your spot in RV, closer RV before you arrive?
That was it, yeah.
Yeah, so the answer is yes.
You'll get reached out to...
I'm going to guess probably first of June, like maybe a couple weeks in advance to understand
what your spot number is.
And then just to revisit that, I think we're sold out at this point of RVs.
Those tend to go pretty quick, but that was the reasoning behind why we told people if
you want to have a spot next to someone, you need to buy your passes together.
Because we're assigning the spots based on when you purchase.
So the first to buy gets closer and then it kind of moves its way out.
But also by order number.
So if you've got three RVs in one order, they're going to get sequential spot numbers
assigned to them.
And all of that is just another small mechanism we're putting in place to help
keep traffic moving along and keep things going.
Because you'll get a map ahead of time.
You'll know exactly where your spot is in relation to the toll or the tower entrance
or wherever it might be so you can kind of orient yourself.
Something...
I don't know if I've shared this with you guys, but this is an impressive one that I've been
boasting a little bit.
You guys know how traffic was for GA for Bonnaroo for the first 15 years.
I would say 10 at minimum, yeah.
Yeah.
Last year we had traffic data collectors essentially that would track a car from the
interstate to the time it took them to get processed at the toll booth and get in.
And the most any single car ever waited was 48 minutes.
Wow.
That's down from like six to eight hours.
Yeah, I was saying.
Four to eight hours.
We have done a ton to make this thing run as smooth as possible.
And that's why you'll continue to see things like, not necessarily that cost the fan,
but things like the reentry fee.
We continue to keep tweaking this thing so that we can just make it run as efficiently as possible.
I mean, we're parking three NFL stadiums in 36 hours, right?
It's a lot on two lane roads.
So yeah, in a field of grass.
Yeah.
The only thing you see us do that relates to traffic, just know it's a decision we're
making because there's some logical explanation on how it's going to make things move faster.
Well, let me ask you this that you might not have the answer, might not want to answer.
That's just right where we're talking about.
Every year, all these years back when it was 10 hours to get in to 48 minutes to get in,
there's always the chatter.
The lore of all this goes back for a long time.
What do you do to get the best spot closest to to center?
So essentially just for your travel while you're there for whatever other reason.
But the main reason we would all agree on is because you're the closest to center.
Is there a strategy that people can use to be able to feel like they're doing their best to get?
No, I don't know.
We're just talking about RV.
I'm talking about people in cars and throwing up the easy apps.
Is there a strategy or is it not that simple?
No, they're tied on to that, Brad.
Like that guy who's like, man, I can't get there till Saturday morning.
I'm going to be, you know, screw you.
Are they screwed?
How do you balance that?
If you're trying to camp, if you're trying to come in and camp on Saturday,
you're going to be to the left.
You're going to be out far.
You're going to be pretty far away.
I don't think there's a way to scoot around that unless you buy 931 or Moon Colony,
where you have a designated area that you are in regardless of when you show up.
I should have prefaced with let's forget about group camping.
Let's forget about 931 because those are obviously fixed areas.
But the more the more GA, the traditional GA we're used to talking.
Yeah, I know.
That's a good point.
That's why you think about buying those options.
Yeah.
So if you're just a regular old GA carpool, you're coming in with four of your buddies,
the way to get to the arch is to get there on Tuesday.
And I know that's not for everyone, but there's a reason we put the Tuesday people and start
parking them right at the arch is because those are the most loyal Bonnaroo GA fans that exist.
So you get rewarded with proximity if you're willing to come out for another day and a half
earlier than everybody else's essential.
That leads right into the next question because somebody was asking what time do the gates open
on Tuesday?
That changes every year based on really how many people just tell us they're going to arrive on
Tuesday. So now that we have the daily entries, that's a lot of data that really helps us
understand when are people showing up. So if we only have 5000 people showing up on a Tuesday,
I'm just going to make these numbers up arbitrarily, but if we only have 5000 people
coming on Tuesday, we might not open the gates till 4 or 5 PM. But if we've got
20,000 people coming on Tuesday, we'll probably open it at 11 or noon.
So that time will change based on how many people are going to show up that day
and how long we need to process them.
I'll be there on Tuesday, so at least one.
I was going to say taco Monday, four o'clock, and he'll be there.
And he'll probably get in.
Speaking to the Tuesday, Wednesday thing, when this was first announced,
I don't know how many years ago it was now, that it was going to be a kind of a staggered entry
based on what you purchased. I don't think anybody would be surprised to think that I was cynical
and thought, I don't think that's going to work, guys. It looks like it is working.
But what about the people who get those days mixed up because of just, uh, of just negligence
and they just messed up or the person who's always going to be screwing these things up
and they're showing up on the wrong day and all it'll be no big deal.
Wednesday gets there on Tuesday, Tuesday gets there on Wednesday. I mean, how convoluted
can that be and, and how much of a problem for the patron coming in? Could that be for them?
Or is it really that much of a problem at all?
So this happens, this happens. I would guess all the time, but yeah.
In the grand scheme, you know, I say it happens a lot in the grand scheme of things. It's probably
a, you know, a couple hundred people out of however many, but it does happen.
Listen, it's not an issue for us. It will slow you down a little bit. And here's the reason why.
Everything that we do to make this show run efficiently is based on having good data.
So if you bought a Tuesday and you show up on Wednesday, we'll let you in. We don't have a
problem. Or if you should, or if you bought a Wednesday and show up Tuesday, we'll let-
That's more of the question really.
We'll let you in, but we're going to pull you aside and refund you and get you another one
so that our data is correct on who actually showed up on Tuesday.
Because if we let a bunch of Wednesday people in on Tuesday, it throws it all off.
It throws all the messes, it messes everything up. So we have to make sure we're only as good as our
data is accurate. So we have to make sure that we've got all that information correct.
That sounds like a lot of, that sounds a lot of like a lot of work at the toll booths. So yeah,
let's get the days right guys. And let's show up on the day you said you're going to be there.
It is, it is a lot of work.
Okay. Ready to move on?
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay. This one is about group camping. And I think this is Jake from RooHamm saying,
saw an increase in price for group this year. Are there any additions to that area of Atteru
and what can we expect to see? And it sounds like you kind of touched on it because you did say
expanding amenities and adding more options and stuff like that.
Yeah. I mean, listen, we've, we've fought a long time on not raising the group price.
It's probably the first year that it's gone up in quite a while. I would say since at least 2019.
I'd have to look on that or have chat GPT correct me. But at some point we like, we have to find
ways to help cover some expense of these increased amenities and doubling the bathrooms and the
showers and all of that. So, you know, we're not picking on group. We just need everybody to help
pitch in just a little bit. I think we went up 10 bucks maybe. I think it went from 60 to $70
for the groupie pass. So that's what that is. I wouldn't say we're necessarily going to,
this doesn't mean we're going to book more bands, but you're going to have better bathrooms, more
bathrooms. There will be an increase in the amenities and infrastructure that you see over
there. Before you move on, Taka, I want to jump back to when we were, Brad, we were talking
about the day parking and the main reason is I'm curious is because I've done it so many times.
You mentioned that it was $50 for a day parking, you know, roughly maybe give or take a dollar or
two. Is that for the whole weekend or is that per day? That's per day. Per day. And we don't sell,
we don't sell a weekend. We don't sell a weekend day parking. Well, because in a sense you're
selling a camping pass, kind of. A few reasons. The first reason is, back to what I just said
about data, we have people that buy a four day pass, they only come for Saturday and that skews
our data. We don't know how many people are coming each day. So if we make you buy a pass for Friday
and for Saturday, we know exactly how many cars are coming on Friday, exactly how many cars are
coming on Saturday. So that's the first reason behind not offering a four day but only offering
single days. The second one is, yeah, we had people that would just buy a four day parking pass and
in the parking lot and that screws a lot of stuff up. So I've seen it happen. I watched it happen.
Yeah. So we have to, unfortunately, when fans decide that they're going to gain some of this and
they're just trying to maybe save a dollar or two, which I respect, but it ultimately messes up a
really important system that we have in place. And by the way, everybody, your campsite and day
parking is going to suck. Yeah. So far away. Because more people than, not you, Brad, I know
you know, but more people than others realize do the day thing. I mean, there's a lot of locals,
and I don't mean just Manchester, Tennessee, a lot of rural Tennessee locals and Chattanooga
and Nashville guys that don't necessarily want to be out in that circus like it could seem to them.
A lot of people thrive on it, love everything about it. A lot of people don't want to do it anymore.
And so that's an expense that they need to keep in mind. And I understand why you do it.
Yeah. Was there another that, is there something I didn't answer on the day?
No, no, no, I think we got it. Yeah. You got that. What else you got, Taco?
Our next question concerns the horse patrols in the campgrounds. Oh, I had this on my list.
A lot of people are asking if they're coming back. Someone even mentioned, they said last year was
the first year they had items stolen from their RV. And if the horses aren't coming back, will there
be an increase in security in the campgrounds? Let me tag that and then we'll go right to you,
is that first of all, I get a little irritated is only where that comes to my mind quickly when
a bunch of anecdotes start to, okay, I'm sorry you had a bad day. I'm sorry someone stole something
from you. I don't know that that has, I'm going to guess it doesn't have any correlation to that.
But what we did mention on this show, or at least I brought it up, I believe, just in passing the
Maltese, as we would call them, the horsebacks that were there for so many years. And from what I
understand, it looks like maybe we've only been doing this for about it, not having this for maybe
a year, maybe two. There was something about those. And I know you understand this, that it was a
safe feeling. Doesn't matter if it was real, that it was a perception based thing. It was, it felt
Bonnaroo. It felt safe. It felt like we, that there was somebody who was looking over us, who wasn't
trying to come after us. You know where I'm going with this, where some people think about the police,
that's not me, but you know that some people think that way. I miss those damn things. Anyway,
continue to your thoughts on that. And are they coming back? My guess is no, but go ahead.
So it's something that we've obviously been paying attention to. 2024 was the first year
that they weren't there. So just one year. What it boils down to, this is our take on the situation,
because there was a big Reddit thread. They got some traction on this and we've had people reach
out with questions about it. The reason behind why we decided to not use them was strictly that
housing those horses and feeding them and doing all, it's an added layer of-
Cleaning up after them? It's an added layer of stress on this infrastructure. Hopefully you're
starting to catch a theme here, right? Whenever we took those away, we still added in the same
amount of security that we took away. So it wasn't like the overall number of security went down,
the form of the security went down. And my interpretation is that it's all an optics thing.
Regardless of if there's more security guys around, if you don't see them, you don't perceive that
you're more safe. So what we're working on is some ways to make our police and security presence in
the campgrounds more visible now that the horses are gone. Because I agree with you, Brian, there's
something about seeing those things, you're just like, okay, nobody's going to try to pull anything
funny right now. It's just a safety feel. Yeah. It's comforting.
Yeah. So we are, the answer is yes, there'll be more security and we're working on ways to one,
make that more visible and two, make it easier. I think one of the things people really liked about
the Mounties was if they were by their camp and they had an issue pop up that they needed security,
they didn't have to run around and try to find a guy with a radio or security. Just look up.
They would look up and go, there's one right there. And so that is the thing that we're going to solve
for in 25 is access and visibility of those resources. Well, let's give another, there's also
a subculture on this that having more police presence doesn't make some people or what they
think looks like a more official police presence doesn't look or a security presence doesn't make
people feel safer. I mean, that's some people's true heartfelt feeling is I don't feel safer just
because I see some uniforms that I'm used to, Americanized way of law enforcement. I'm not
trying to say I agree with that. That's just what some people think that to some, I think was that,
well, this is different. This is not the stuff I'm used to or been conditioned by TV or the
your phone to tell you that this is scary and this is not. And so I, even when you say we're
going to, there could be more and more and more. I think some people could look at that and say,
I don't know if that's making things better or not. I think it is for the record, your thoughts.
Yeah. So I have to tread a very thin line between two different people, right? The people that,
that more security makes them feel safer and makes them think that the single day people aren't
going to steal all their stuff while they're at camp. Those damn single day people.
And then I have to also make sure the people that those kind of security forces make feel
uncomfortable. I have to make sure that they feel also like they're in a space that they can be
comfortable. Right? So I get that there's two different mindsets. Something that we added
last year, it might've been two years ago now, and that you'll start to see more of.
We added a team called SafeFest. And these are guys that, guys and girls that are wearing
like neon green shirts that say SafeFest. They're not security. They're not cops. They are people
there to interface with patrons that have an issue they need to discuss or look at that they
don't feel comfortable talking to a cop or a security guy about. There's a, we got this from
something that Insomniac does at their festivals called Ground Control. It's the same thing. It
just has a different name. But that is something you'll see us increase on because that has been
a program that has proven, hey, I'm having a panic attack because maybe someone put something
in my drink. I'm just making up a hypothetical. I don't feel comfortable going and talking to a
cop about this, but I need to talk to someone in a official capacity about what I'm experiencing.
And that's where SafeFest and our medical services, like those people we hope are going to be the ones
that make people feel more comfortable out there rather than just adding more police with their
lights and guns on their heads. And those medical tents that have the red cross on them that have
been prevalent throughout the campgrounds, I haven't spent a lot of time out there recently.
That's still very much where we're expecting to see them. If you need those medical tents,
that hadn't changed because usually you would see the Mounties hanging around. There's nothing
there needed to be walking around looking. They'd be right there. So if you found the Mountie,
you found the medical tent too often, going back to talking about how I need help, I need help.
Okay, found that. Now I'm probably close to the medical tent. But those are still there. Those
still do all the same things that they've been doing for all these almost now decades.
Yep. And next to those medical tents, you'll find the areas that we've set up for these new SafeFest
teams. So they're integrated almost together there then. So that's, it's like, yeah, cool. Great.
Yeah. Safety at festivals right now is finally in the subculture online of talking is
talked about more and more and accepted like the stigma of we're going to have something set
the Narcan stuff that we're going to set up stuff that you wouldn't normally feel like in your,
you know, your city or in your community. I'm going to run and try to find somebody with
life-saving drug overdose stuff. Like that's just, you know, we don't really want to talk
about that kind of stuff, but in the festival environment, that's become very accepted by
seemingly everybody. And most, all of us are just ecstatic to know that. Yeah. To me, it's like,
this isn't the best example, but it's like when I was, you know, in high school, my mom was like,
I'm okay. I'm cool if you drink, but you got to do it at the house. You got, you can only hear,
right? We, we had to get with, with the fentanyl crisis that's happening and all of that,
we, I think as organizers, not just Bonnaroo or C3 in the whole industry, I think we're at a point
where we have to acknowledge these things are happening, so we have to combat it. We're not
going to stop the fentanyl crisis. So what we can do is best prepare ourselves and our fans to take
action if something does happen. And that's, that's where the whole Narcan thing comes from.
I just want to add on to that. I think Brian, our guest, Patrick from Sobri, one of the things he
said that triggered to me and Brad, you sort of mentioned it earlier is maybe you're that guy
who's in a group of people who are partying pretty hard, but you don't want to, and you need a safe
place to go, you know, and like you said, Brian, not go tell on them to a cop, you know, you just
need to go to somebody and say, Hey, I need, I need to get away or, or I think my friend's doing
this without, you know, without, you know, narquegon type of thing. I think my friend's in
trouble, but I'm not sure because I've never seen this happen before. Where do you go? So I think
that makes a lot of sense, Brad. Totally real quick. I know we're coming up on, you know, you've got
to go here a little bit. Thanks for so much for your time, but I want to make sure Russ, like,
you know, what other questions do we have? We got a few. I don't know how many more we'll get to,
but there was one about, I probably got another 10, 10 or 15 at max probably. All right. We can do
one question in like 10 minutes if we try. So I've got two thoughts left that won't take long. I'll
do it at the end. So taco, let's do what you got and then we'll wrap it up shortly. All right. Well,
I like this one because this says Brad specific camping must brings, and I assume they're talking
about you, Brad and not. Well, there was one of them so I can mark that one off. Yeah. Assuming
you stay in an RV on site during the festival, what are your gotta haves like from creature
comforts to life hacks? And then to kind of tack onto that, someone was also asking about
essentials for staying cool because they said they were traumatized from the heat wave last time.
Essentially, Brad, this is your version of Banh Ru do's and don'ts. Go. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll
start with my creature comforts and things that I have to have. One of them, which I don't know how
this would play in a tent, but I always bring not an open flame candle, but a candle warmer
because I like to have a smell. I like to mask kind of the smell of just being out there for a while.
So that's the first thing. Something that makes me feel at home. Coconut water is my number one
thing I drink every day to help me stay hydrated. Good for you. Good stuff. Drinking just normal
water is not going to do it for you. It's the most boring thing ever too, you know? Yeah. So I guess
the point there is find something that has electrolytes and is hydrating that's not just
water to drink every day because you're walking three or four miles a day without realizing it
in 90 degree heat and even if you drink two gallons of water, it's not enough. So you need
to find other ways to hydrate yourself. So that's one. I always bring a blanket and pillow from my
house. I don't like using generic ones. I know in camping that would probably mean that I'm just not
going home with that stuff, but anything that makes me feel for two weeks like I'm in the house helps
me kind of get through everything. The obvious things like sunscreen. My favorite thing that is
also electrolytes that I keep on me and you have to go to the Walmart kids section is the little
squeeze pouches of like applesauce and stuff. Baby food essentially, yeah. Yes. Those things,
and they make adult ones now that have more electrolytes in them, those things are easy to
keep in your pocket. They don't have to be refrigerated and they are filling and keep
you hydrated. So that's one of my secrets, I think. That's actually gold guys. We've done a
ton of do and don'ts and I haven't thought about that. You get a blast of some little, I'm sure
there's some protein in there. There's just energy ingredients. Yeah, I like that. I'm trying to find,
can I share my screen on this? Will it let me? You should be able to.
Tacos you gotta ask on that one. I pulled it up real quick on the Kroger, good old K. Rogers
website. Let me share this. There we go. Yeah. Look at this interactiveness. Wow. This is high tech
stuff. We are taking this to another level. All right. Yeah. So we're looking at, what does it say?
Go Go? Yep. Go Go. Go Go Squeeze. There's blueberry, apple, pineapple, all kinds of different flavors.
It's just like applesauce for adults. It'll keep you hydrated. Dude, this is big time stuff. I will
have this. That's gold. That's gold. Yeah. No free. We're all gonna go stuck up now. Yeah.
And I can't even pretend like it was my idea. It's too out there in the open now.
All right. I've only got one left and it's a throw away question. So if you've got anything
that looks good over there, let's do it. Yeah, I got one real quick. We got an email almost right
before we went live. This is from Joe who's sending a couple other stuff, but he was asking about,
and Brian, I think you can relate to this. He said he's heard stories of people in the past that
showed up and didn't have the prescription bottle. So they had to turn around and go home and grab
them. But he's coming from Houston. So he can't exactly do that. So he's asking, so he ended up
taking all of his bottles, regardless of if it was vitamins, supplements, prescribed medications.
He wants to know, is this the only way to do this? Or is there possible to take a photo of the labels
or like, what's the best way to handle if you don't want to risk your medications being
confiscated? Have the bottle. I mean, sorry, I'm going to answer the question. Have the bottle.
I mean, I don't know. That's kind of a confusing question. So he's saying he wants to bring all
the pills, but not bring the bottles with them. And the only reason I could see where you'd say
that sometimes you got a bunch of bulky stuff. Maybe you only need five. You don't need 55. You
don't want to have the possibility of your entire prescription being. He attached the photo and it
is a lot of bottles. Brian, didn't you bring like one of those seven day a week, you know, one day?
Yeah. So you know what? I'm done. It was a failure on my part of not thinking it through,
but I put my medications in the Monday through Sunday thing thinking, well, this is very clear.
No, it's not. Anyway, have a nice day. I'm like, whoa. But yeah, but now I've since then,
yeah, I get a plastic bag, put them all where you can read. I mean, I don't have like four of them
and you can just read the names and you can take a look at the dates and it's just boom,
put it down. Yeah. Paco, my, I mean, my answer officially, and I hope you all understand why
this is the answer is that we really want you to have a, a bottle with these pills in it that has
your name on it. Like we got people trying to bring a lot of stuff in that we don't want them
to bring in. And this is unfortunately people that have no bad intentions sometimes get hurt
in that process. But I would recommend that as much as you can, even if you got to peel the label off
and stick them to the bag, like whatever you want to do, like have something that I wouldn't even
do that. But, but yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah. Especially if you're talking about anxiety,
medication and blood pressure medication, which is essentially what I, what the only things that
matter to me in this moment and those go in tandem, right? You don't got one, the other is
going to get worse. And, and so that could be a really, really dangerous thing for people.
And then if you get confiscated, your anxiety and blood pressure is going to go up anyway.
Yeah. You want to talk about having a panic attack now, maybe I need the medical tent. So
yeah, these are, I would be as by the book, by the letter and as cautious as making sure,
excuse me, that you do this right. Cause that's a hell of a way to ruin the beginning of amazing
weekend. So I would, I would not try to skirt that whatsoever. Anything else, Taco? This one's not
about camping, but I'm curious too. I've had people ask, do we know where the infinity stage
is going yet? Is that right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, location of it. We're guessing where the comedy
10 is, but that's easy for us to say. Yep. You're correct. Oh, look at that. It's almost like we've
been there a few times. It's going to be in that bottom corner where Calliope comedy 10, all of
that used to happen. The who stage is going to get relocated. It's not going away. It's just getting
relocated. Cause this thing, this thing takes up a decent footprint. So we're going to be doing some
grading back there. We're going to be putting in drainage. Like it's, it's a hefty investment
for this thing. It's not just a building a simple tent stage. So, but yeah, that's the location it'll
be in. And I think that lineup don't hold me to it, but if our talent just drop it now, if our
talent team has everything together that they're supposed to, that lineup is going to come out on
Tuesday. Oh, okay. Well, so well, this episode will come out Wednesday. So by the time you hear this,
you will have the infinity stage lineup, probably. Yeah. Unless they screw it up and have to wait
until the following Tuesday. Let's hope for that. Yeah. And then we'll talk it up. Yeah. Either way,
it's either way it's coming soon. The final one from me here, Brad has maybe it's information.
That's privileged and it's not allowed to be out there. Have you sold any of the
preposterous $26,000 Roo insider packages yet? Has this happened? Yes. You have. Wow. Was it
Jack White? Who did this? I mean, you guys forget that we used to have roll like a rock star. I know.
Well, every year, rolling star sold out every year. But wasn't that more like five to seven,
eight, $10,000 or something? It was 40. Oh, Jesus. Wow. Yeah. I didn't realize. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Well, but yeah, but that was that was set up almost like a travel agency package.
This is on the like, here's your ticket. Three, this for this 26,000. It's just like right there
for anybody. Just having fun with it. But okay, sold a couple of them. Good for them. There are
people, there are people that live very professional, quaint lifestyles that make really great income.
And sometimes they just want to come out to a show and forget that the regular world exists and have
fun just like the rest of us. And the best way to do that is to go exclusive as it gets. So good.
So you can eat a car when I give you a copy of yours, Brian. Okay. When I give you yours act
surprised. Let me know how it goes. No, I can stand by the sound guy. I'm so excited.
No, no, no. On the insider package, unfortunately. Oh, man, that's harsh. Even I'm not going to ask
for that. All right. All right. Well, Brad, sometime later, we're going to talk about Arcade Fire,
what all that means. I know that's probably for later. That's a great, great ad though.
Yeah. And BP man, thanks so much for your time. It's always a fun time and it's good conversation
and we really do appreciate it. We appreciate all the answers and all your time. Yeah, man,
this is always fun. And yeah, we can do, I don't know, maybe, maybe if I'm crazy, we can do some
another episode here in the next week or two and talk about whatever you guys, we haven't really
discussed the lineup officially. I don't think, uh, well, let's wait. Can we wait for your partner
in crime to come back once you get off Navy leave? He, his first day back is tomorrow. So,
oh, okay. So we can, we need to then. We definitely, yeah, I mean, we can get less,
we can get less official. We can just be a bunch of dope sitting around talking about what we think
about the lineup and not connected to anybody. If you, if y'all want to do it, we do this every
single week, Brad. So, do you want to be the new cohost? Come on. Maybe I need to, maybe I need to
host a, if you guys ever go on vacation all at once, maybe I'll host a solo episode. It's a Brad
Parker takeover. Yeah.
All right, man. How cool is that for him to come on and, uh, you know, we say it all the time,
but he's kind of reached out to us partly because like he said, he listens to the show and he hears
us make the mistakes and Lee, I could just hear his teeth grinding, you know, I have a feeling
there's a level of hate listening, not in the word of hate, but just like, let's see how many
things they screw up. Right. That's right. I've been paying attention to see what they messed up
and take notes. He just likes to hear his name mentioned. Well, we all like that. We all like
that. But now seriously for him to come on, uh, you know, we, we see all these questions about
camping and listeners and patrons and you know, because they've changed the way camping goes.
So there's gotta be questions. So for him to come on and, and address it directly is pretty cool.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. A couple of things to get to here as we wrap up the show. Um, well,
shaky knees, a little bit news that I'm gonna let you take. Um, Russ, cause that seems to be
more your account these days. That's it. It seems to be falling to me. Yeah. You've been doing that
for years, but real quick, um, a week out Tweet, uh, tease next week, I'm going to see Billy
strings in Nashville and I'll give a quick review before we have our guests, uh, for, for next week's
show. And this is a very, very defining time in the life of whether I'm going to be a fan of Billy
strings. And that's what this whole idea is with some friends that are taking me to go to this show
at Bridgestone arena, Nashville on Broadway on a Saturday night. We're already off to a bad start.
That's where I got to hang out. And I was talking to, I was talking to some guys the other day,
and I didn't realize this completely, but the jam band scene has really come to Billy strings,
not as much Billy strings went to the jam band community. And the way that that synergy has
happened, he is, he's reciprocated that and his shows have turned into, there's lots before,
lots before and, and grilled cheese sandwiches and bootleg merchandise, which that part I love,
but he's also tailoring his sets this way. This bluegrass guy who doesn't, I'd have only been
around on a, you know, a prolific way for about five years now, three, four to five years.
He doesn't, he mixes, he plays a jam band style set and the newest song on his new album that I,
that's got the most metrics on Spotify and I'm sure it's close everywhere else is Gild the Lily.
And can I be unreasonable just for a second? You always are. Why would you change? Yeah.
If Billy's, this Gild the Lily song is fabulous. And if he doesn't play it,
then the show I go to, he's dead to me. He's dead to me. Okay. I didn't know where you were
going with that. It's so, well, cause that's unreasonable. Cause he's so great. I love that
song so much and it's a hot charting song. I'm not talking about, I want to hear something,
third song on the fourth album. I want to hear the song that's charting the most in America right
now. And I don't think, I don't, I don't think I'm going to get it because he doesn't play every
single night. So I will have a full review, whether he's dead to me or not. This is the end
of the love affair with Billy strings. A week from right now. And that's all I'm saying.
The bluegrass thing isn't surprising, right? I mean, that's where Jerry Garcia came out of,
right? Yes. All that. Yeah. The connective tissue is all there. Most bluegrass is essentially jam.
Yeah, but it's true. It's one note just played a hundred different ways. Yeah. But it's not the,
we're going to promise not to play this song today because we played it yesterday. Right?
That's a different thing. I see. Okay. That's a jam band specific thing. And if Billy strings
plays that his, his most charting song or most stream song on Friday, I'm not going to get it
on Saturday. And that's just tough bleep for me, but he'll be dead to me if he doesn't play it on
Saturday. I got you. Anyway, what's up? What do we got? Shaking knees doing the, the clues thing,
right? Doing they're doing rule clues. So if you don't know, shaking knees is normally in May.
It's in Atlanta this year. They announced it's going to be in September at a new, unfortunately
for us here, we like it in the spring. We like it. Yeah. So, you know, they pushed that back. So we
don't have the lineup yet and everybody, everybody's been wondering when is this lineup coming out?
Well, this week they started dropping clues and this is pretty much the root clues just straight
out of the playbook. Have you figured any of them out or found anybody who else who did? Cause I
didn't even look. I didn't personally figure them out, but I have the answers. Oh, what are they?
So the first one was, and I think I can put them up on the screen. The first one was apparently
Lucy docus, which had a lot of people excited. Okay. Never heard of her. Second clue. I think
she's part of the, like the boy genius kind of that group. Second clue cage, the elephant,
which, you know, that was a clue. That was a clue cage. All right. Cage. The elephant is the act
that shaky knees needs to have. Cause there are, there are an indie rock festival. I love it. 100%
agree. It's perfect. Third clue. And this has had me the most excited weird Al Yankovic. Oh my God.
How nice. I was just talking to some friends about going down to Huntsville to the, to the
Orion. I'm still planning to go to the weird out show in Huntsville at the Orion. I can't not see
weird out. It's like, it's just something that can't not happen. I've seen him probably two or
three times. It's a fantastic show. Never. That's awesome. Yeah. So, uh, so those are the only three.
Those are the only three. They've, they, they put all these out this week. I mean, it was like,
boom, boom, boom. So, you know, they still, we still don't know when the lineup's coming.
But I thought what I thought was funny was if you look at some of the comments on like Instagram or
wherever they're putting these out, people don't know what this is going on. You know, like we,
we know what rule clothes are cause that's, that's, yeah, shaky's never done. Shakey's never done this.
So people are like, what the hell are you doing? Why don't you just release the line? I don't know
what any of this means. Like, why are you making me do it? Yeah. It's, it's for the, for the Pete,
cause a lot of those people that are going to go to the city festival in Atlanta,
they're a lot of them aren't Bonnaroo people. So they're not used to all the quirks and the
weirdness and like, it would be just kind of like, why are you patronizing me, man? Just tell me.
Yeah. Just give me the lineup. And maybe by the time the show comes out, maybe the lineup will
come out. Maybe they're doing this leading up to a lineup reveal soon. Yeah. And for anybody who
missed cage, the elephant had a, a Bonnaroo. Was it just last year? It was last year. Unfortunately,
I missed it because that was the Mars Volta playing at the same time. That's right. Wow.
That was great. Great, great, great, great, great. I really want to see
cage, the elephant at shaky knees. So that's got me excited. It's got me excited. I had no intentions
on going and it's just down the road and we can get those amenities and arrangements taken care
of quite well. So maybe this isn't one of these we're all going to bourbon and beyond, except we're
not. Maybe we actually are going to shaky knees. We'll see. It's a long ways down the road, but
yeah, thanks for that. And I'm, I'm, that's just about everything I got. I can't wait for this
Billy string show so I can report back. Barry, what's other than, yeah, very, how's safely getting
through the concrete jungle that is middle Georgia. We're just about to the Atlanta airport area. You
know where that is. So we're a couple hours from, we're from, yes, we're a couple hours.
Well, just real quick. Next week's show. We'll just, you were talking about shaking knees,
adapting. I'm going to call it adapting and also, you know, Brad talking about them adapting
our guests next week. And I'm not going to say who just because things can happen. And I,
and that it falls very good. Our guests next week will be somewhat very involved in another
festival. And we're going to talk about how it has adapted. So that's right. They're all learning
from each other. We'll be talking some like boutique festival kind of stuff is what we'll be
touching on next. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. So we got a lot of good shows coming up. So
all right. Thanks guys. I'm going to get off of here so we can get through this
traffic and get home safe. Yeah. Safe travels, Mary. All right. See you guys.
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