It's not you, it's me.

I think I can do better.

It's all about the money.

It's not about the money.

We had it so much better back in the day.

Why can't it be like it was 40 years ago?

I know how to fix this.

We're going to talk about all of those things in the next, I don't know, it might be an

hour, it might be two hours, but we're going to do it on the What Podcast.

Here we go.

Russ, I don't know about you.

That's Lord Taco, I'm Barry.

This is the What Podcast.

If you know, you already know, but I'm going to set it up for you.

We started this thing in 2018 as a, not a lark.

Yeah, it was a lark.

It was kind of a, we thought we'd do three months, right?

Yeah.

You, me and Brad Steiner, who is kind of taking a hiatus.

He hit the pause button.

We'll talk about that later.

Brad hit the pause button.

We hope he'll be back.

And I do want to mention, cause I, I last week's show, I, you know, sort of introduced

myself 37 years with the Chanukah Times Free Press, Bryan Stone, a sometimes guest who's

now going to have a bigger role.

Uh, has been doing radio and podcasts for many, many years.

And we got to talking and I glossed right over Russ.

He's the guy who does the, a lot of the behind the scenes stuff, but I also failed to mention,

and I've done that before, Nick Turner, Nick helped create a lot of the really, really

cool graphic stuff, right?

Nicky T is amazing.

Yeah.

We love Nicky T. Nicky T is the best and, uh, I sort of neglected him.

So I wanted to mention that, but, uh, a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks that

I don't know about you, but I didn't see coming.

Um, our show last week with the Chattanooga mayor, Tim Kelly, um, on the heels of the

moon river festival in Chattanooga announcing that it was hitting the pause button.

Um, Russ, I gotta tell you, man, it's been a busy week.

It sure has so many conversations about that.

And uh, that's what we want to get into today.

Um, if you aren't aware, let me see if I can set it up quickly.

Moon river, which is a national festival that started, uh, it was started in Memphis in

2013, 2014, I think, and outgrew it pretty quickly.

Moved to Chattanooga in 2018, uh, 10 to 12,000 people in a Coolidge park here in Chattanooga,

a place that nobody thought could hold a festival.

Right.

And it's all that.

So we determined three out of five years it was here.

It sold out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Quickly.

Cool.

Yeah.

Like days.

Yes.

When it sold out, it sold out in days.

Uh, so it was very popular, drew about 55%.

Uh, out of town guests.

So it was a big deal for the city, huge deal for the city.

And it hit the pause button.

And, um, I mean, man, I gotta tell you the conversations I've had since have been, uh,

interesting, shocking, scary, good.

And that's what we're going to get into.

Um, for you guys that are listening, you know, why do I care about a festival in Chattanooga?

Because it relates to the music industry and that's what I want to get into.

Uh, there's a lot happening.

Right.

There is a, it's happening in cities all over the country.

Right.

Right.

And ours, this festival is, uh, uh, it relates and that's why.

So if you're sitting there thinking, ah, I don't, you know, I don't care.

Uh, hope you'll stick around because it's relevant.

Trust me.

Um, so Chattanooga mayor Tim Kelly joined us last week for an hour on a Sunday, which

I knew would be interesting, but I didn't know how interesting I keep unpacking.

Oh, it was

What he said.

I'm so great to have them on and yeah.

Uh, just like there's a lot of it.

Yeah.

Well, he said, uh, find me another mayor who is more supportive of live music than Tim

Kelly.

Yeah.

Start there.

And, and there is a lot of stuff that he said that you can read between the lines that's

talking about the industry.

And the reason I know that is because almost immediately after it aired, I started getting

phone calls from people within the industry saying great interview.

Here's what you missed.

Here's what you got right.

Uh, here's what else you need to know type of thing.

And I, and I hate doing an anonymous and I hate doing behind the scenes stuff, but I

can promise you, um, we will have those people on eventually because they promised me they

will come on.

Uh, but we got a lot of it, right?

We got some stuff, you know, wrong, not because we messed up because, but we made some assumptions.

For example, I think we intimated that the moon river festival might go to Huntsville.

It's not going to Huntsville.

And I should have, I kind of let that go.

Um, one of the things that, and we've had Drew Holcomb, the co-founder of the festival

on our show several times, right?

Several times.

He's always been a Tennessee guy.

This festival is a Tennessee festival.

It's always going to be a Tennessee festival.

It's not leaving the state.

Um, you need to put that out there and drew, I'm sorry.

I'm sure you've been grinding your teeth for a week.

I mean, I don't know if he listens or not.

He may not even be aware, but I assume he listens.

I assume everyone listens.

Why wouldn't they?

Exactly.

But we're not the only ones who have been, uh, you know, speculating.

Yeah.

Well, it's not hard to, you know, read between the lines and make that assumption because

like we found out Huntsville has been aggressively attracting music, uh, festivals and musical

acts to come through there.

They want to become like a music city almost.

So no, no, no, a hundred percent.

Yeah.

I mean, there's not almost that's, that's exactly right.

And so it was an easy leap.

Uh, and that's, that's interesting.

Um, but as I've learned from talking to people, like I said, all week, it's an easy leap.

And as Mary Kelly said, you can write a big fat check and draw that festival, but it's

not as easy as, as all that, um, you know, you still have to have fans, you got to draw

fans, you have to have.

And I guess this is part of what I've learned.

Um, there has to be an attraction.

It's not just, you know, that band a is playing your city.

It's as we've said over and over and over, it's the fan experience.

Was it easy to buy tickets?

Yeah.

What's the website?

Easy to navigate.

Uh, do I care to go to your city?

You know, what else am I going to do?

Uh, is it a, um, uh, park, you know, do I have to drive?

Do I have to take a bus?

If I don't like the band, can I walk somewhere else and go shopping or get something to eat?

I mean, there's so many things.

You're right.

And that's really, yeah.

And Chattanooga checks all those boxes, to be honest.

I mean, it's where Coolidge park is in North Chattanooga is right in the middle of a great

area to walk around in.

There's bars, there's restaurants, there's shops.

So you know, and like mayor Kelly pointed out, Huntsville doesn't necessarily have that.

No, no.

And I've talked to people from Huntsville and even they were like, we're so excited

to have this festival coming.

And then they heard our conversation and like, oh wait, we don't have that.

Yeah.

We don't have that.

So, and then I, again, talking to other industry and, and like I said, you can, you can, you

can unpack a lot from the conversation we had last week with mayor Kelly and Russ, we

kind of talked about it in our introduction.

Um, but we, we, I didn't dial down when we were talking to mayor Kelly, that size thing

is probably way more important than we talked about when they moved to Chattanooga 10 to

12,000 was the number.

That was the boutique number.

That was the comfortable number that festivals wanted to hit.

It's not enough.

Yeah.

It apparently is not enough.

They can't make money at that number.

So it's gotta be more.

Which is funny because, you know, it wasn't that long ago you and I were talking about

the rise of boutique festivals and you know, instead of a 70 or 80,000 festival, why not

do a 10 to 12,000?

And to us that seemed perfect, especially for a place like moon river in Chattanooga.

I can't imagine wanting that to be bigger, but you know, at the, at the end of the day,

you got to sell X number of tickets to make, to make your money back, I guess.

And that's, that's, I'm glad you said that because that's kind of the launching point

where I really, when I woke up this morning and knew we were going to have this conversation,

I, I just, like I said, it's been all week.

I've been thinking about this.

I don't think we intended this show to be sort of a time capsule of festivals, but it

has become such.

And the more I thought about it, you know, whatever pat ourselves on the back.

I'm going to go ahead and do it.

Yeah.

Russ has done an unbelievable job of archiving all of our shows and you can go easily, fairly

easily to the guest lineup and look, but I started writing down some notes and I alluded

to it last week.

We've had some pretty cool people on, not just like artists that that always is good,

but to me it's the sausage making stuff.

And so I'm, I'm going to ask, you know, if you're interested in this kind of stuff, like

I am, I just made some quick notes, Russ, you'll remember we had John and Allie.

They were, they are promoters.

They book acts for C3 and they were on to talk about how much stuff I'd gotten wrong

quite honestly, which I appreciated it still.

But anyway, they talked about how acts are booked, why acts are booked, how they consider

routing and you know, where they are, you know, we, I always thought it was like a 90

minute radius, which Allie told me it was what more like three to five hours, five being

kind of the goal point being you don't want the same act playing the same market.

And that's relevant for us because Chattanooga is 90 minutes from Knoxville, 90 minutes from

Atlanta, two and a half from Birmingham.

Right.

Or what, 55 from Huntsville.

Yep.

We, you know, we've always existed in this weird Bermuda triangle of big cities that,

yeah, they don't want to have that overlap when they, when they tour.

So if a lot of times they'll skip over Chattanooga because it's like, why not just go to Nashville

or Atlanta, you know, which has a better venue, which has a better venue and a bigger market

history.

Yeah.

We know it's going to do well there.

Yeah.

And then, and Chattanooga thinks, oh man, our location is great.

Why don't they just stop here?

They don't want to stop here.

It takes away from the other.

So exactly.

That's, that's one point.

And then we also had Jeff Becker.

I don't know if you remember him as an attorney during COVID who introduced us to the term

force majeure, which is that little bitty line at the bottom of your contract that says

what happens if the earth blows up?

You know, who's on the hook?

That was one of my favorite interviews.

Me too.

That was, I'm like, what the, what, he, what?

Yeah.

So that was interesting.

One of those things you never think about would ever happen until it happens.

Just like we had a few years ago, you know, the world ended basically.

And yeah, you're right.

Who writes the check when that happens?

Who's on the hook?

Somebody has to, somebody has to, yeah.

That's right.

And that can't kind of came up, but boy, it did come up two years ago.

And last year with the moon river again, when the rain, right.

You know, every, uh, you know, they lost money.

Well, no, they had insurance.

That wasn't the deal.

These guys know what they're doing.

It's it's sucks and it sucked for us as fans.

Yeah.

I mean, they refunded everyone's ticket, which was the right thing to do, but you're right.

Somebody bailed them out.

Somebody.

Yeah.

There's it's always about money there again, back to the money.

And we also had Mark Myers and I went and I did find a few memories.

That was an interesting conversation.

It's kind of where I want to go.

Mark wrote a book about the history of concerts and I'm going to bring it back around.

I remember talking to him because I'm a lot older than you are.

So I kind of, um, I wasn't at Woodstock.

I was a little kid, but the history of like arena rock and rock and roll and concerts.

I'm very familiar with because I covered, uh, shows at our UTC arena from about 1982

on 12,000.

Uh, they say 12 is more like nine 9,500 was the capacity.

We had a lot of great shows, a lot of, you know, the van Halen's and the guns and roses

and I mean, on and on and on.

It was a terrible, it is a terrible building for a rock concert.

It's all it is.

I've been there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It looks like a can of tuna.

It's a round 10 building built for basketball.

It was not built for music, but, and I bring it up because in the last week when all this

is happening, their people are, you know, with their nostalgia.

Oh, I saw so many shows.

Why can't the, we have, you know, why can't UTC?

Well, the industry has changed and that's truly the point.

We were lucky to get those because we had people who wanted to bring those shows in

here and they did what they could, uh, to bring them and God bless them.

And thank you.

I saw some unbelievable Motley crew in there was amazing.

On and on and on.

But it was a bad, it is a bad venue.

It also doesn't have parking, uh, for the promoter and it doesn't have alcohol sales.

So the promoter only can make money on tickets.

I won't get into all that, but it's a, it's a key component.

The promoter has to make money, right?

Yeah.

Three things.

One is concessions and tickets.

That's how they make money.

If you eliminate two of those, they're not making any money.

The other thing is we, there aren't as many individual promoters as there used to be,

uh, like it or not, live nation is the 800 pound gorilla.

Yeah.

There's only a handful of them.

And mayor Kelly even pointed that out last week that, you know, the lack of competition

so much, if you will read the lines to what mayor Kelly said, it's all there.

Trust me.

Um, but yeah, there's, so there's, you know, these guys are in it for business.

They're not in it so that Chattanooga can feel good about itself.

That's the other thing I keep hearing, you know, if only people cared, they would do

this.

That it's, it's a business, right?

And they're not coming here if they can't make any money.

Right.

Uh, and a lot of people forget Ashley caps, who is the AC and AC entertainment, which

started Bonnaroo used to book those shows.

He's been doing it a long, long time.

He didn't just suddenly get smart.

What was it?

20.

When did AC kind of take over the Tivoli and the auditorium?

19, 18, 17.

It was before COVID.

Yeah, it was way before COVID.

You're right.

Um, yeah, I'm sorry.

I can, I can look back, look that back up, but, uh, he didn't just suddenly get smart.

Right.

City didn't suddenly get, you know, Hey, we should probably talk to Ashley caps.

He'd been doing it a long time and failing and having success.

He brought a lot of shows to the Tivoli and the auditorium.

Some were successful, some were not, but that was the point.

It was always kind of a iffy situation.

Who, by the way, we've had Ashley caps on the show.

He was what, second or third guests we've ever had.

Yeah.

You've been on two or three times, I think.

Um, yeah, I'm glad you're, I want to bring that up again.

Uh, sort of my history.

Part of what I want to do is kind of the, the Mark Myers thing, the history of this

stuff.

So we had a lot of good shows at the arena and, but they were hit or miss.

You know, there were so many that they were canceled because of ticket sales were so poor.

You know, we joked about that before Chattanooga is a bad walk up.

We don't buy advanced tickets.

Now why is that important?

Because the promoter gets nervous.

If the promoter is looking at his advanced ticket sales and he's, he hadn't hit his

nut, uh, his, you know, his magic number, where he makes money, they get nervous.

If they know they can go to Knoxville or Atlanta or Nashville or whatever, and they, they know

they're going to sell tickets.

That's where they're going to go.

They're not in it to take a risk and go to a Chattanooga or back in the day, a Huntsville,

you know, they book as Allie and John said, you know, they book where they know they're

going to be successful.

They might write in a risk, you know, try to, try to grow a market.

And that's what they did for the long, long, long time.

So there's that, but, and I've said this on the show before I did, I reviewed all of those

shows at the arena and they were great.

They were fun.

I mean, there was country, there was rock, there was rap.

They were fun, but I mean, it got dull.

I think I've said on here before it got predictable, especially if you went a lot, the shows became,

you kind of knew third song, Hey Chattanooga fifth song.

Hey, this is our band.

You know, it was, it was dull.

And then Bonnaroo happened in 2002 and we've joked on here, our former cohost and co-founder

Brad Steiner.

I remember introducing him to Ashley Caps in Louisville at Four Castle in the bourbon

tent.

And the first thing out of Brad's mouth was, thank you for saving live music.

And I thought, Oh my God, really?

You know, and Ashley kind of looked at him and, but he was like, no, I'm kidding.

I'm not kidding.

The industry had gotten predictable and dull and nobody cared about touring bands.

Right?

Bonnaroo as we've said, changed all that because now I get to see a hundred acts and I get

to discover acts that I've never heard of.

I'm not just going to see my favorite.

Right.

And that's a key, key thing.

It really was important.

Yeah.

It broke the formula.

Completely broke the formula.

And so we, I mean, that's why we're here.

That's what I, anyway, that's what I love about the band.

About that festival is I, I get to go there and discover, come back, come home with one,

two, 10, whatever favorite new acts that I'd never heard of.

In addition to seeing the ones that I already knew about.

Right.

Yeah.

That's because people aren't listening to the radio anymore to discover music.

They're not watching MTV.

You know, this is pretty much the best way to find new acts that you have never heard

of.

And I don't want gimmicks.

I want, I want, I want to, I mean, I like a gimmick.

I love a good light show and whatever, but I want, you know, that childish Gambino show.

One guy.

Yeah.

In a microphone.

Great example.

Unbelievable.

Yeah.

One of the best shows I've seen.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Incredible.

Brandi Carlisle on that Sunday Father's Day morning was amazing.

You know, those are the kinds of things.

So what's changed?

All of a sudden now the costs are way, way up.

Festivals.

You our show last week, if you remember, you sent me, you know, the edited version and

you put a headline on it.

Are festivals dying?

I think.

Is that what it said?

Is this the end of festivals or something?

Yeah.

I think the first draft said that.

And I immediately texted back to you and Brian.

I was like, that's a little strong.

And Brian's like, no, maybe not.

I don't think it's too strong.

I don't think they're dying, but they are definitely changing.

For a lot of reasons.

You know, the first thing Mayor Kelly said last week when I asked, you know, how do we

interpret this pause button thing was it's complicated.

And again, it's not just because moon river hit the pause button in Chattanooga.

That's what I've discovered over the week.

We figured out this is not a Chattanooga thing.

This is not a one time thing.

This is happening in cities all over.

That's exactly right.

The industry is changing, the costs have skyrocketed.

Fans taste not just about the music, but what they're willing to go to.

And that's that to me was the thing, Russ.

I mean, you and I will think about our own experience, you know, camp nut butter for

people who are new to this show.

That's how we all came to be friends.

I didn't know Russ before 2018.

I really didn't know Brad.

I knew of him.

We had spoken, but we all ended up literally in a camp together at Bonnaroo, which we,

I dubbed camp nut butter because Brad's wife, Hillary is vegan and makes her own nut butter.

And it's a funny word.

So, you know, Hey, I'll see you guys next year at camp nut butter.

And from there we came up with what a sign and a fencing.

Oh gosh.

Yeah.

Balloon.

I mean, yeah, it's unbelievable.

Had as many as 20, 25 people that I consider close friends now, people that I never knew

and before that, and we have that bond.

But last year, what?

Seven of us?

Yeah, it's dwindled a little bit and for a variety of reasons.

Yeah.

The big reason I think is that we got kicked out of our space, but well, that we got old.

Yeah.

People had kids, you know, people got health issues, whatever.

And yeah, we over, we oversold the camping area on this show and the folks who put on

a festival figure, Hey, we could probably make some money off of that.

Anyway, point being that's part of the change, right?

I mean, we've been going some of us 20 years since the beginning.

So the evolution, but my point is, I guess it really hit me this week that we're hit.

We've hit another big, big change.

I'm not here to say it's, it's the end.

I'm here to say they're going to have to figure out how to grow and adapt.

We pointed out several years ago that everybody thought they could have a festival.

I mean, there were, it went from what felt like a dozen, maybe two dozen that were on

the radar.

I mean, a lot of towns had, you know, their strawberry festival or their whatever, but

the big ones that would draw national attention went from a couple dozen to a thousand or

more.

I remember Rolling Stone doing a story on it.

And so now it's, it's resetting, you know, it, it seems like there's a lot of money to

be had, but the costs have gone way, way up.

So the serious players are figuring out how to, how to make it work.

Right.

They are.

And I think that's a big part of when we had, you know, Brad and Corion from C3, they talked

a lot about how they're trying to figure out to make these changes when they did the uncoupling

of the tickets.

They're trying to tailor the experience to how tastes have changed and how fans have

changed.

That's exactly right.

Yeah, I mean, Bonnaroo again is a good example.

You know, it started as a hippie fest because hippies would camp.

It's pure and simple.

Ashley told us that straight up.

Straight up.

That's why they book.

It wasn't because they wanted a hippie fest.

It was because the fish fans would camp.

Yep.

That's exactly why they booked fish.

Yep.

Yeah.

And, and they knew over the years that they would have to adjust and create these VIP experiences

and, and all of that.

And they've done that.

So now it's another reset, you know, call it a pause, call it a reset, whatever.

But I don't know.

I mean, like I said, I'm not trying to be a naysayer.

We love these things.

So, you know, we're all in and our guest, I guess we're going to go ahead and do that.

Our guest on the show this week is Dan from Gallatin, Tennessee, right?

Correct.

He's a veteran festival goer goes to a bunch of different ones, including bourbon and beyond,

which you'll hear for the first part of it is you, me and Bryan Stone gushing over this.

What looks like a made up no way.

It's real.

Yeah, exactly.

We were couldn't, yeah.

Almost thought it was a fake lineup just because we've heard nothing about this year.

It's so tough to book acts.

And that's the reason why you're seeing, you know, lineups like you're seeing this one

comes out of nowhere.

And I mean, you've seen it.

It's got everyone on it.

Yeah.

I'm surprised there aren't dead people on this thing that I want to see.

Right.

And you know, the doors and the Beatles and it's that good.

And we, we got, I mean, we literally gosh.

And then Dan comes on and gives us kind of a reality check, doesn't not in the sense

that the lineup changes, but the user experience part of it.

And I mean, that's huge, right?

It is.

That can be the difference between I'm going to, well, now I'm not so sure.

Right.

And again, everything from did the website work?

Could I buy my ticket?

Am I confident that I bought my ticket?

Do they have their hand in my wallet?

I mean, I've said that many, many, many times on here.

You know, you mentioned Brad and Corey and the different user experiences at Bonnaroo.

There's a line between, does that make my experience better?

Because I get the pick or does it feel like, you know, yeah, you can go here, but it'll

be another 10 bucks or you can go there.

It'll be another 10 bucks.

You know, and then all of a sudden at the end of the day, you're on the hook for a big

number.

All those things play into it, right?

They do.

And so kind of teases what Dan talks about, verve and beyond.

It's a little like that.

It sounds like where they're kind of nickel and diming you every, every time you turn

around, you know, you're paying for something else.

Yeah.

Also it's that city thing.

You know, they all want them, every city, every place wants them.

We mentioned, we alluded to Huntsville, I think, and I just want to reiterate Moon River

is not going to Huntsville.

Huntsville will have its own festival.

I think I can say this without giving anything away.

The plan is for Moon River to come back in 2015.

2025.

Excuse me.

I did that the other day on the show.

I think I said Bonnaroo when I meant to say Moon River.

Thank you for correcting me.

2025.

The plan is to bring it back where, when, how, you know, remains to be seen.

Right.

So I think we went from being not so optimistic that it's coming back to now.

I think we kind of are optimistic that it's coming back.

Yep.

If they can make it work a hundred percent.

And then that's, you know, we made a big deal with the pause thing.

Like what does that mean?

You know, we, the thought process is, yeah, that's just like I said, it's not you, it's

me.

Yeah.

I make you feel good PR speak.

But exactly.

But everybody that I've talked to, uh, is confident that they are trying as best they

can.

Um, but again, it's that whole, we're going to have to figure out where the industry is

going type of thing.

And I think that's the point of, of all of this.

So, all right, so here we go.

We're going to hear from Dan, who is a, um, you know, regular festival goer and, uh, he's

going to tell us his experience at bourbon and beyond in 2022.

Music festivals almost universally will agree that the 2020 Bonnaroo lineup was the best

lineup ever.

And of course it didn't happen because we had a pandemic.

It's still referenced, but this past week or depending on when you're hearing this, the

bourbon and beyond festival in Louisville released its lineup and guys, it almost looks

made up.

Right.

Am I making that up?

It looks fake.

It's so good.

Yeah.

All the yahoos that do the, uh, mock lineups online over the off season, which I don't,

I think it's actually kind of fun to see some of that stuff.

Um, some people try to be deceptive with it, which is annoying, but that's kind of what

this looks like.

Like who, who has great tastes in music and decided to make up a fake lineup?

Cause that's what this feels like.

I mean, when Neil Young is your fourth headliner and let's see, going way down.

Um, what was the one that read?

I just looked again.

Lyle Lovitz on here.

Lyle Lovitz is on here.

The beach boys are on here way down.

Chris Isaac, Devin Gaffillion is, you know, eight rows from the bottom.

And when, when you're top two coming from just my personal preference, when you're top

two headliners, I really couldn't care to see it all, but still love every second of

everything I see here, meaning Zach Brian, which is one of the biggest artists in the

world and, uh, and Dave Matthews just cause I've seen them a lot.

I'm not a hater.

It just, okay.

Well, that's why I get it.

Trust me.

I get it.

Um, but just like normally if the headliners don't grab you, even the undercard is difficult

for some to get excited about because these things are expensive and there's a lot that

goes into this and you want the headliners to be something that you're interested in.

In this case, in this lineup for bourbon and beyond, it doesn't matter.

Like who's where or what line you're on.

First of all, this is one of the more different posters we've seen in that there's the top

line and then every other line all the way down is almost the same size.

Like as opposed to the gradual dropping, I don't know what it's just an observation.

I don't know what it means.

Probably nothing, but it, it's crazy to me.

This lineup, it speaks to anybody on the undercard could be a headliner anywhere else.

It speaks to me to anybody watching here.

This is my list of everything I want to see at this festival.

This is, this is more of an almost like most want to maybe kind of deal.

I have never seen a lineup where I would write down that many bands over the court.

That's a full sheet of paper.

I filled out this many bands.

I don't want to see a Bonnaroo any given year.

It would be a two or three year conglomeration.

This thing, you know, it just depends on who you ask and everything in life.

This line is crazy good.

You could see everyone on this lineup and feel like you've had a pretty good lifetime

of seeing the bands that you wanted to see.

Oh yeah.

This is three or four festivals.

It is absolutely mind blowing.

The more I look at it.

And it is the ultimate undercard festival lineup, I would say, but man, it just, it

just keeps going and going.

It's the energizer bunny.

You just keep looking and they keep the line by line by line.

And it's just like, and then it gets down to the bluegrass section.

I didn't even write any of that down.

Yonder mountain string brands going to be there.

They're like the bottom third.

Yeah.

Jatham County line.

Yeah.

It's it covers.

Barry, are you excited?

You love bluegrass.

Yeah.

Your favorite, right?

Yeah.

I it's, but I mean, it's scratches that your bird, Suzanne Vega.

I mean, it's got, it's got, um, legacy acts, you know, it's got the bands like that, like

Suzanne Vega.

Oh, when am I, when else am I going to see you?

Suzanne, you're not, you're not Mark and Poe.

I love Bruce Hornsby.

You know, he's on like the seventh line, eighth line.

And it's not just brew Hornsby, Bruce Hornsby is with the noisemakers.

It's with the original band.

I mean, I don't know how many are original original, but with the band, um, dinosaur

junior for those, uh, nineties kids, jade bird, jade bird.

I love my life.

I mean, I honestly, the more I look at it, the more I think this is made up.

Soul Asylum is one of my favorite nineties bands.

They don't tour, not on this side of the country.

Tedesky trucks is third line.

Uh, but I'm going to go back real quick.

As you mentioned, headliners, this is the year supposedly that booking headliners is

the most difficult in forever.

I mean, I've heard from industry people that's part of the reason some of these festivals

are maybe hitting pause buttons is because, you know, all the big guys came out so strong

out of the pandemic and now they're hitting a reset.

But yet we get Zach, Brian, Dave Matthews, Tyler, you know, Neil Young, Beck, second

line matchbox 20, the national, and we haven't even mentioned my band, my morning jacket

and the war on drugs.

That's the first two lines.

That's the first two lines.

And I mean, whiskey Myers is a huge act right now.

You can see there's a, the way that it's designed, you know, where people are going to be, you

know, where the Zach Brian fans are going to be, they're going to be at whiskey Myers,

you know, where the Neil Young and children are going to be at Childers.

Um, it's, it's just layered out so well.

The beach boys.

Now, of course that's the bright, the Mike love band, the Mike love.

It's basically a cover band, but I want to go.

I love the beach boy.

You're going to be there and you're going to sing this.

So you're going to sing for 60 minutes.

Damn right.

I am young.

The giant, uh, who is Marine Morris is, uh, is a huge, anybody who goes to Zach Brian

will be or more in or is it more and more and more and more and more.

Marin Morris, Melissa Etheridge is about to say Melissa Etheridge is the next line.

Um, yeah, there's even a couple of TBDs on there up on the higher end.

Like who, you know, if you put to be determined or announced, that doesn't mean that's not

some garage band, you know, so they're going to stone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Alan Stone once upon a time, you know, was really Niko moon is Niko moon is way up there.

I'm glad to see that he's a, he's a friend of the show.

Been on with us for us.

If you remember nice, super, super nice guy, the, the Warren treaty, which was, uh, just

nominated for best new artists at the Grammys, which is pretty ridiculous considering they've

been around for over a decade.

All right.

So it's pretty clear.

We all agree that as an unbelievable lineup, uh, and it's, it's got us beyond excited.

We've already decided yesterday that we're going, but we also have a guest.

We're going, absolutely.

Yeah.

We, but we have a guest that, uh, that Russ, I think you, you found and, uh, Dan is going

to join us.

He's been, he's actually been, so we're going to hear from him now.

And he gives, uh, spoiler alert a little bit.

He loved it, but there were some issues.

And so we want to hear, we're here his take on it.

Right.

So, uh, here we go.

And, uh, Dan from, uh, Gallatin, Tennessee is joining us.

How are you?

Good.

How about yourself?

You like Dan or Daniel?

Six one half does the other day.

It's probably easier.

So let's go with that.

Where are you calling?

Where are you from?

I am just North Nashville up in a Gallatin, Tennessee.

Okay.

All right.

So you've been, you've been to this bourbon and beyond festival before, right?

Uh, I did.

I went in 22, uh, when, uh, Pearl Jam was the, the main, uh, headliner for that, that

year.

Um, you've already got a friend.

Yep.

I was a little louder than life that year, but, uh, when they announced Pearl Jam was,

it was there.

It was like, Nope.

Changing my plans.

I went to a burden of beyond instead.

All right.

You go to other festivals?

Oh yes.

Uh, summer camp, uh, uh, all in Montero, of course.

Okay.

Good.

Just want to get some establishment.

So we were talking just before you jumped on that this lineup looks made up.

It's beyond good.

I don't know how they afford it.

Okay.

All right.

So what quickly, what are the ones that jump out at you?

Oh, for this year's lineup?

Wow.

Uh, I don't know where to begin on that one.

Um, uh, everybody it's a pretty fair.

I mean, you're not, it's, it's got everything for everybody.

Um, a couple of surprises, like I'm kind of surprised Andy Frasco ball people is going

to be there for this one.

Um, I love Frasco.

Like I loved him a lot.

I just don't know how old his stage presence and act is going to go over at the way this

festival is laid out.

Um, we're going to get into that in a minute here.

Yeah.

Uh, but Dave Matthews, I thought he was going to be at Rue.

That's a good one.

Uh, just it's a lot of the, for us old people, there's a lot of bands there that are just

like, I'd love to go see all this.

Um, yeah, 90s kids are very happy with some of this stuff.

That's for sure.

Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Are you a, uh, camping festival or city festival or does it matter?

Is it lineup?

Is it what you go?

I have a lot of questions.

You go by yourself.

I mean, describe how you do this.

Okay.

I prefer camping festivals and that's actually one of the reasons I was excited about burn

beyond cause there was a city festival that did camping.

Um, so it was like, that's cool.

Uh, and uh,

the execution of the campings not quite there is, uh, more kind of an add on than anything.

Um, but, uh, I prefer camping festivals.

I prefer the vibe with the crowd and everything else.

And uh, so yeah, and I normally go, me and my, uh, my partner, uh, we normally, uh, we

go check these all out.

We've discovered our love of music and 22 festivals and stuff.

And now we're addicted and go to as many as we can get.

Okay.

All right.

Uh, so do we want to go ahead and just jump right in what it described this festival?

Cause well, let's talk first about lineup.

How important is lineup to how, how you choose.

If you go to a bunch of them, they're all different, right?

City and for people who are listening, city festivals are typically you stay in a hotel,

you eat in the local restaurants, the festival gates open at a certain time and they close

at a certain time.

And so you're, you're, you're in and out of there.

Camping festival can be that, but it can also be like Bonnaroo where you're literally camping

next to one of the stages.

So it's, you know, 24 seven.

So just sort of setting all that up.

Um, do you have a preference again?

And how much does the lineup, you said you like camping, but how much does the lineup

play into which one you choose?

Um, I would say maybe a 40%.

It's a heavyweight, but it's not, it's not my determining factor.

I mean, in some cases, like, uh, when they announced Pearl Jam, of course I was all over

that one, but, uh, yeah, I wouldn't say a lineup is that a driver as long as there's

enough I can groove to, there's four or five bands that I can listen to that makes it worth

the ticket price.

And so I'm good for that.

Okay.

All right.

So what was it like?

What described this festival?

I've been to a forecastle, which is also in Louisville, but it's a completely different

festival, right?

I mean, it's on the river.

It's I would consider a city festival.

We stayed in an Airbnb, but a lot of people stay right by the, in the hotels right there

and they walk and it's pretty cool.

This is different, right?

Yeah.

It's kind of like a hybrid.

They do, they do have camping there and, but it's mostly, uh, I would say probably most

of the people either locals or they're hoteling it.

The camping space, there's, it may have been a couple thousand RVs, a couple thousand car

campers and that was about it.

Um, and it was kind of wedged off into part of the amusement park that's attached to the

expo center, you know, Kentucky kingdom, which, which is there.

So we basically were camping and what would it be, um, the parking lots of the, the amusement

park.

So there's no plazas, they're not stages.

They're not wearing the woods.

There's no, like what's the, the camping area, what's its proximity to what we would call

center.

Like what, what's its proximity to where the action, where the main stage area is.

Are we talking a hundred yards?

Are we talking a mile and a half?

It's bottom about a mile walk.

Okay.

So it wasn't too bad.

Uh, the RVs were in the front of the camping closest to the stages.

The car camping were in the very back.

Uh, there was a single center Plaza where they had a single food truck and, uh, the

only hydration station for the camping area.

So you need to, you need to take care of yourself.

Uh, in this setup.

Yeah.

Oh yes.

Oh yes.

And the porta potty situation was, you never get that right anywhere.

Yeah.

Wrong answers.

Always situation, but, uh, the hydration issue was a big one and I want to touch on that

a lot when we talk about this festival.

Cause if there's one complaint I have about bourbon and beyond, it's that, uh, in so many

ways.

Um, so yeah, it really wasn't infrastructure set up for camping.

Really?

Like I said, the camp feels to add on.

They get access to the bowling alley that was attached that's right next to there too.

Whoa.

Um, well, yes or no.

Sounds like it sucks.

By that, do you mean it had a bathroom and air conditioning or you went in there to bowl?

Yes.

So, uh, bathroom air conditioning was the big thing cause it was a late September.

It was hot as hell that year too.

Um, and, uh, the problem was, is the, like, it was great cause they had like a little

restaurant there and like stuff like that.

Except when you had hundreds of people show up from the campgrounds, they were not staffed

for that and it quickly became overwhelmed.

Um, they try to do, you know, they announced over the Twitter or something like that, or

the app that there was going to be discounted bowling for the campers.

And we got to the bowling alley and they're like, you know, we didn't agree to that.

So it was like, okay.

Uh, yeah.

So the good thing about that was, is it was like a great midpoint of walking from the

back of the car camping area to the festival.

So if you had to stop, it was a great midway point to do it.

Okay.

But other than that, it, the novelty wore off really, really fast after the first couple

of times.

So, um, so yeah, it was, uh, you said you're camping in a parking lot, like a literal you're

on pavement camping.

Uh, some people were, uh, I was actually in a little strip of grass that was, um,

also, by the way, underneath the flight path for Louisville international.

Oh, so all those FedEx planes are coming in and out of there all day long.

We can wane twirl this thing, you know, let the planes fly over.

So as we sit on top of our cars.

Nice.

Yeah.

If you've never been there, FedEx is, uh, I think it's UPS, but yeah, either way, it's

cargo plane after cargo plane at the cargo plane.

It's it was, uh, it added to a great, um, how many years question for everybody here?

I was just trying to quickly look it up, um, Google it and I didn't get a quick answer.

How many years is this for Berman and beyond?

Is this four or five years, three or four years?

I couldn't tell you exactly.

It's fairly new.

Yeah, not that many.

So they're probably still working through a lot of these growing pains would be my guess.

My, my first guess too, is that camping has been in a later addition to this.

I, my, I'm only taking a guess and I want to hope that's the case.

If it's kind of this, um, what's the word that the way from the way it's being described

is slightly unorganized or potentially, uh, people not on the same page.

Cause that's every festival from the one we try to put on our backyard to the one down

by the river.

There's always something somebody's forgotten about.

There's always growing.

Yeah, there's, there's major growing pains and I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt

because I love this lineup so much that that's what they've been dealing with, but you can

speak to that more.

They're charging.

If I'm reading this right, it's $300 to count.

That's all that.

Yes.

Yep.

That's all right.

That doesn't sit.

That's, that's not the price you'd pay for what you'd expect if it's a, uh, add on

a better, a better situation for sure, but then you'd expect it to be executed.

Yeah.

Did you have a space allotted to you or did you have to find, I mean,

You know, you pull in and they're parking you and you've got to get set space.

I mean,

It's like, yeah, they have the same thing.

It's the same standard 20 by 20 space that they were allocating off.

But some of them were asphalt or parking somewhere on asphalt.

Okay.

Yeah.

Would not want to be on asphalt, especially when it's that hot.

Yeah.

And in September, you never know.

I mean, it might not mid September.

It might not be that high.

Probably will be also could be a hurricane down in the Gulf and then,

Not every tent is designed to, you know, sit on concrete, dig into asphalt.

So, okay.

So all said and done.

No, it was still cheaper than hotel and wage, which was one of the reasons that we did it.

Um, and, uh, you know, coming to Nashville, could I have driven every day?

Absolutely.

I just kind of wanted the vibes of the thing.

That's, that's what I go for.

And, uh, it wasn't a bottom room vibe, but the camping itself wasn't bad.

It wasn't a bad experience.

It just wasn't a, I would not, camping does not sell that fast.

Let's put it that way.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Uh, what else?

Uh, good to bad, the ugly with, with the festival or than, uh, camping was good.

Lineup was amazing.

Um, the bourbon was good if you could afford it.

Uh, it was great.

I had a 1946 Willard with my nephew.

So that was probably would not have the chance to have that pretty much elsewhere.

Nice.

It certainly makes things better.

Yep.

Um, they do have seats.

You can buy tickets to carry in like bag chairs and stuff like that.

Uh, and they have areas that are, you know, if you want to sit down and take a chair and

you can, I think it was 10 or $15 a day for a bag, for a ticket for your chair.

Um, good side on that.

Do you just bring your own chair in and pay them to bring it in?

Oh yeah.

You, you pay, you pay, bring your own chair.

That's the way I thought it read.

And I kind of, I rolled my eyes at that.

Uh, there, there's a lot and I'll let you get back to your point.

I don't mean to, to cut you off, but there's, I've not heard a lot of great things about

this festival from a logistic standpoint.

This is not the first good lineup.

You already, if you didn't say it exactly, you alluded to it.

There's been really good lineups for this festival.

Um, but yeah, I, infrastructure Lee logistically, and I'm going through Reddit, Twitter, social.

That's the only, that's the only measurement that I have a lot of complaints.

And I, I'm, I'm interested when we get to your, the hydration part you talked about,

I've heard others talk about that in the past, but, um, was, was there a lot of that type

of thing, Dan, where it's a pay, all I cart pay type of stuff.

Um, I mean, you didn't have to pay for water.

No, uh, you didn't have to pay for the bathroom.

You didn't have to pay for showers or did you, uh, no showers.

No, there were a shower.

There was one shower except it was broken when we went to go use it.

So we ended up just shocking.

The one shower was in years.

Uh, so we just, you know, camp showered it, uh, um, yeah, the bag chairs, the thing with

the chairs were, it was a great idea if you want to be there in the early afternoon before

it got crowded, but by five or 6 PM, those chairs were useless at that point because

the crowd was so heavy in front of you.

You couldn't sit down and see anyway.

Um, uh, logistically wise, they had the bag chair actually was the fastest way to get

into the festival because they had like a ton of people allocated to search the bags,

the chairs for everyone else coming in and there wasn't that many people going in there.

So it took longer to get searched, but you made it through the line faster than everyone

going through the normal gates.

So that was kind of weird.

Um, now for 10 bucks, you could just ditch the chair and you get in quicker, I guess,

right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, so, uh, the food was good.

They had good selection of food there.

Um, is it really bourbon heavy or is that just a clever?

So that's just the name.

So the, a lot of the, the, the companies are all in there.

They had like one tent that was, uh, about as hot as Hades because of how hot it was

with no air, but, uh, and that's where they were selling like these classic bourbons and

rare bourbons.

Just the Kentucky bourbon or the name is where that it's less about, Hey, come drink a bunch

of or taste a bunch of bourbons and stuff.

I was wondering about that.

I do think it's one of the worst names for a festival ever.

Just not going to argue with that one either.

Um, sounds like bed bath and it sounds like it's going on, you know, this weekend with

the, you know, the barbecue fast next door kind of thing.

Yeah.

The cotillion fundraiser.

Yeah.

Uh, and the, the, what else?

Uh, yeah, that's the good and the lineup, the lineup was good.

And I will say their, their execution of the bands playing, they had that down to a fricking

science, this left, you know, left, right stage, uh, back and forth, back and forth.

I've heard that.

Uh, there was maybe 15 minute gaps between each set.

And so, I mean, they had that just clicking and moving and I give them full props for

that to get through those, those bands like that with no delays.

Um, and I guess part of that is they have a hard cutoff at midnight or something like

that.

So they got to get through that anyway.

Um, again, it's that what time did it start?

What time was the first band?

I want to say it was like 2 PM between one or 2 PM until midnight, until midnight.

Okay.

And there's two small stages in the back that did a lot of bluegrass that I actually never

got to because I was up there for the main stuff.

Um, so yeah.

Uh, is this, I mean, I'm somewhat familiar with Louisville, but not this particular site.

Is it all wide open concrete?

It's all basically like a giant airport is what I imagine.

Concrete and gravel.

Great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Some grass in the, where the booths are and stuff like that, but where you're sitting,

where you're standing, uh, for the show, it's, it's mostly gravel and hard packed dirt.

It's the Kentucky Expo Center.

It's um, and yeah, there's not a whole lot of nothing out there.

It's just this big open area that they used to roll up these stages, these booths to go.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then there's facilities and, uh, and waters.

Well, you were going to talk about the hydration, water stations.

We're going to go right to the ugly.

Oh, sorry.

Go ahead.

No, no, no.

Go, go with your, go with your.

That's Brian's, that's Brian's skillset right there.

My bad, my bad.

You were good, bad, ugly.

Just continue.

My bad.

So good was the lineup.

The lineup was good and the execution was good.

The bad was, uh, camping was, you know, kind of an afterthought and, and, uh, let's just

go, yeah, let's touch the ugly.

Because it really is a big one, uh, to be honest with you.

It's probably the thing that is keeping me from going back there.

Uh, if I do, it's, it's, I don't know.

Uh, so they have a policy, there's no hydration packs.

Uh, you can bring in one clear plastic bottle, uh, for water and it can't be sealed.

You have to have the lids off and stuff like that.

So you can't even bring a water bottle.

It's gotta be empty and it's gotta be see-through.

So people were coming in with like that hydro flask and they're like kicking them out and

they're like, nope, you gotta get rid of that.

Um, so, so no camel packs, no camel packs at all.

Wow.

And what an asshole move.

I agree.

And the two, there's two hydration stations there with six spouts each, and they are at

the very far end of where the stages are.

So the stages on one end of the fest, your water is on the complete opposite side of

where this place is.

And like I said, they have six spouts, uh, each hydration station.

So you're talking a total of 12 for the entire place.

You're not thinking you might've missed four or five other of these.

Nope.

Oh, this is not surprising me again, from what I've read through the socials.

Uh, so like Saturday when Pearl Jam was played, of course the largest crowd and it was a massive

crowd there.

Uh, it was an hour and a half to two hours in line to get water.

So, uh, that was like my, my biggest complaint.

And we, me and my nephew, we were up on the rail and it was so packed in there.

We, we couldn't get out.

Uh, my girlfriend luckily couldn't, you know, she made it out.

She waited two hours line to bring us one bottle of water piece.

And it was like, we were, it was close to us falling out.

And that's not my first time doing this kind of stuff either.

So I was like, um, now they did have some vendors selling some water for like eight

bucks a can.

If you could get to them.

Yeah, liquid death, I'm sure.

Right?

No, it was not even that it was like music water or something like that.

Some other water in a can with a, yep, exactly.

Uh, for an outrageous price.

Uh, if you could get to them and, uh, the hydration situation was, it was so bad.

That's actually what keeps me from wanting to ever go back to that festival again, despite

these amazing lineups.

No, I mean, it's a legit man.

I mean, I mean, it's the number one rule of a music festival.

They hydrated my God.

Right.

And we had, there was people falling out during Pearl Jam too.

Eddie, uh, yeah.

Eddie better stop the show twice because people were passing out.

Wow.

So, uh, but I mean, and we talk about this on this show so, so much.

It's not just the lineup.

It's how easy was it to buy tickets?

How easy was it to navigate the website?

How easy was it to get in and out?

The user experience, the user user experience is primary and, uh, you're not selling it.

Yeah, I don't want to go anymore.

I'll just, I'll just, uh, watch YouTube, watch Bruce Horn's thing on YouTube.

And I hate that because, uh, you said it's great lineups and stuff and, and it's, and

for me it's close, you know, it's a two, two hour drive.

Yeah, five and a half hour drive from Chattanooga.

It's one of the easiest drives of that length you'll ever make anywhere.

Um, and I love Louisville.

So for those who don't know the layout of Louisville, and I've heard a lot about it,

is this, how far off from like where the downtown, where the river runs through the town, how

far away are we talking that this takes place?

South about one minutes.

That's what I was going to say.

That's why I'm afraid I'm not even see the cool parts of Louisville.

If I were to go just to see, you'll see nothing cool about the expo center.

It's an airport.

It's a tarmac, Brian.

I mean, it's, it's a fricking tarmac.

I don't know how else to describe it.

It's a, this is where they do a lot of like cattle and horse and you know, like agricultural

expositions and the farm expositions and fairground.

If the paved gravel fairground, basically.

Huh?

Yeah.

The forecastle, as you were talking about earlier, Barry, that's like how our old river

bin festival used to be down on the river downtown, where the cool, where the same,

the same guy who designed their riverfront design Chattanooga.

Oh wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's just bigger, bigger, more hotels and, and yeah, Louisville is awesome.

The fairground is, I'm not so sure about.

Yeah.

So when our texts were, when I said I need to go to Louisville at least once in my life,

this might not satisfy that you're not going to Louisville.

Just label this podcast.

This festival sucks.

I mean, I'm kidding.

Not kidding.

I cause I mean, geez, the lineup, the lineup, it's incredible.

Good.

And maybe we started out just gushing over every line.

Yeah.

It's just, it's crazy.

And to talk about Ali, you know, I alluded to how Frasco, right.

And Frasco interacting with the crowd, the way this festival is also very, very catered

to the bit VIP sections.

They call it.

No surprise there.

So the VIP section for standing at the stage is basically, it's the front of the each stage

all the way up almost to the sound booths.

And then that's where they break it off the GA.

So if you're GA, you're just in front of the sound tenses as close as you can get to the

stages.

If you're VIP, it's awesome.

Okay.

Now we're more interested.

Now you're talking because that's the only way we're going.

Yeah.

I would recommend if you're going to do the sound, uh, uh, stage in front of the stage,

all of that is a VIP in front of that.

Not just like pretty much like a third or two thirds.

Wow.

There's a great picture.

Uh, wow.

I probably show it there.

If you look online for Pearl Jam, you can see the, uh, they took a picture of when they

were playing in 22 and the delineation where the VIP versus GA is so clear as day.

And it's such a huge section for VIP.

It's a, it's crazy.

Almost how big it was.

Well, I mean, okay, these are all things that I've seen on Reddit and Twitter and Facebook

on the specific festival pages.

Um, and, and then I've also from a few people here locally who have gone and talked to me

about how great it was.

Everything is just in the eye of the beholder, all the different cliches, you know, uh, but

I have heard all the things you're saying.

And, um, in my mind, Brian, I picture Woodstock 99, which you went to and, and loved, but

that's what I think.

I think what, well, to what Barry's talking about, I think you're talking about landscape

and aesthetically, because yes, one of the ugliest places in the history of music festivals

was it was a Griffith airport, a former air force, uh, base later toxic waste dump.

Uh, it was just a big slab of, of, of runways and, uh, and concrete.

And it was, it was terrible.

This wouldn't be that bad.

I wouldn't guess, but, um, interesting though.

Were you there the whole weekend?

I was, uh, we actually bailed a little early on Sunday because we were just so, we all

do it.

Yeah.

Just so worn out by then.

Um, Saturday, like the Saturday with as high as it was and hydration and how close we got

to falling out on that.

It was, we were just, just worn out.

I, I, and after doing two days of that, I, I, a third night of that was just like, yeah.

Right.

Four full air.

Yep.

Yep.

That's a long time.

All right.

And you went in 22.

22.

So we had Pearl Jam, we had a Lannis Morissette, we had Jack White.

Um, that was just, that was a great year.

I, you know, I discovered some bands I wasn't a big fan of like St. Paul and Broken Bones

and Hound Mouth that we had never listened to before.

I came out there like those guys are awesome.

Uh, half a crowded house was there.

They had a little issue with, I guess, part of the band couldn't get visas or

It wasn't crowded.

Wasn't a crowd.

Yeah, it was a crowd.

Partial house.

Empty house.

Partial house.

Too easy.

You know, Neil Finn and I guess one other and they did the best they could for their

hour set.

I gave them, you know, kudos for that, but, uh, Greta Van Fleet was there that year.

Uh, Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlisle.

It was a packed lineup.

It was a great lineup and it just, yeah.

How was the, um, the general feel, the atmosphere of the people you were around?

Was there, was there frustration?

Was it, uh, you know, at Bon Root tends to be even in the worst of times, most people

put away their, you know, their, their patience level goes up if you know what you're doing

anyway.

Yeah.

How did it feel, how did it feel regularly?

Was it, were people frustrated more times than not?

Uh, depends on where you were and depends if it was a weekend pass or a day pass.

Okay.

Uh, what would be the most depending parts of those two or three different options?

The people that were there for the whole time were a lot more patient than the people who

were there for the day.

Okay.

Um, makes sense.

Typical.

Well, the day people didn't know what they were getting themselves into.

Probably they people walk in and want to walk right up to the front of the stage.

Don't they?

Pretty much.

Yeah.

Uh, it was, um, yeah.

So I don't care about their body was all right.

I don't care about their frustrations as much.

I guess I just meant were people thirsty?

Were people hungry going back to like 99?

Yeah.

Were people like, okay, I would love this Pearl Jam set right now.

If only I wasn't, you know, parched and in line to get water starving to death over here.

Right?

Sure.

There was lots of complaints, especially people around us about the water and, and stuff like

that and just how, um, difficult it was, uh, and how frustrating it was too.

Uh, how about concessions and lines and just lines for bathrooms, lines for concessions?

Just where those were all stupid.

Yeah, they were all stupid bad, man.

I think, I think what we need to do and I'll put it out there.

Anybody listening that went maybe last year, uh, that could speak to, yeah, they fixed

a lot of this or they didn't fix.

I'd love to talk to somebody and we probably ought to reach out to somebody with the festival

because I don't even know who is it a live nation?

I don't know.

No, it is Danny.

God, who puts it on?

It's Danny Perkins.

Yeah.

I don't know.

We need to find out and maybe have them on as a, as a guest.

Cause we obviously, you know, don't want to beat anybody up if they fixed it.

Cause to your point, Brian, I mean, everybody has their growing pains, but I would be curious

a if they fixed a lot of that.

And if like now they have 24 water spigots instead of 12 from what I understand from

people who went last year, the hydration situation was the same.

That's a problem.

Yeah.

See, and that's, and everything I'm going on with stuff I read about from just last

year and when I'm thinking like 2,400 water stations.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They, they, they need to easily quadruple what they have out there.

And I, and I mean, you know, use to give water away for free.

That is a rather thing.

Yeah.

The vendors want to sell that water.

I mean, and I get that you want your vendors to make money.

I mean, Oh, they're making their money.

It's about making their money.

I get that, but there is a balance and you got to take care of your patrons.

What what's the capacity?

Do you even know?

Oh, I don't know.

It was, it was huge.

It was, it was so crowded.

I would probably put it, it's probably in the 40, 50,000.

Okay.

So it's not, it's not 80.

And it, but is it capped?

Do you know even that?

I, I, I don't know.

No.

I mean, I was here, they had 140,000 fans.

Is that for the whole weekend?

Yeah.

I wonder what, I wonder who's doing that math, you know, the chamber of commerce or yeah,

I know still though it's not 40.

And it could be all four days added up.

Don't know that, but interesting.

So what would it take?

I mean, obviously we've just all four agreed the lineup is like I said, made up.

There's no way it's that good, but what would it take for you to want to go back?

Fix the hydration.

They allow, allow hydration packs in and fix the hydration situation.

Okay.

Well that's even all in Indianapolis.

So the all in had it at the Indianapolis fairgrounds, right?

Kind of a similar setup.

Even they brought in a whole bunch of portable hydration stations that they set up and they

had other water fountains there and it was an indoor arena and outdoor place.

It wasn't even that big and they had more hydration stations than this place did.

So just water, just give the people water.

Just make your money on your, your sodas, everything else, but at least give them fricking

water.

Yeah.

It sounds fixable.

That's fixed.

That's what I was going to say.

It should be.

Yeah.

That's a fixable thing.

Should be.

And you know, I know they're not going to, but you know, get some GA up to the stage.

I mean, geez, throwing everyone back as far as it was, but that's not a big deal.

I'll just go VIP if I was going to go again, because now I know.

Well, the ticket price, the initial quick glance at everything.

Of course it is the add-ons.

It's almost like more that Bonnaroo is doing like crazy now too, but like the add-ons and

the, it was, it was almost overwhelming trying to figure out what am I buying?

What do I get with this?

But the initial just ticket price doesn't seem to be that excessive.

So I don't know how much VIP would cost.

I'm not in the business of buying VIP.

Generally, I'll take it if someone's handing it over, but the hydration thing, I mean,

especially in the world we're in now, I mean, you don't put on a festival and not provide

ample water.

I mean, it's just that simple.

Like that's irresponsible.

That's borderline liable.

That's you know, there's legalities in that as far as I'm concerned.

So yeah, it would be nice to hear that maybe that's a huge part of the potential upgrades

of this year.

Because clearly the crowd, the excitement for this lineup is huge.

It's huge all over all the entire city of Chattanooga is going to this.

If you, if you, if you listen to Facebook, every person I know in the city of Chattanooga

is going now that means 10 people are going.

That's like 300 bucks for a GA ticket.

It's a pretty darn good start to me based on where we're at in the world of ticket prices.

Yeah.

And yeah, but if you add another 300 for camping and then, you know, they send you to a parking

lot a mile away, that doesn't seem worth the money.

Yeah.

Well, that's why I was going to ask Dan, because one of the things I've said since the beginning

of this podcast is Bonnaroo never felt like they had their hand in my wallet.

Did this festival feel like it does?

Oh yeah.

This festival is meant to squeeze every penny out of you.

And part of the thing about the hydration stations where they are is you had to walk

by every Vindeen booth, every place selling bourbon, liquor, beer, before soda, before

you get the water.

Yeah.

So it was designed.

No accident there.

No, it was very deliberately designed for that way.

So it is what it is.

All right.

Well, like I said, I'd love to hear from somebody else who has either the same or differing,

but especially somebody who maybe went last year.

Yeah.

It sounds like you're, we're all sort of in agreement.

The lineup is unfrickin' believable.

And you know, a lot of festivals have quirks.

I mean, we love Bonnaroo, not everybody wants to camp.

So I mean, I get that.

There are trade-offs, but yeah, you got to provide water.

That's, or at least that's a drink.

If they fix that, yeah, just allow packs in.

You know, that's, you know, if you're going to search bag chairs, but you, you're, that's

your excuse to not to have a camel pack because it takes too long to search.

Oh, is that what they, I thought they might've just thought you were trying to sneak in like

a thing of vodka or something.

Right, who knows?

I was hoping that's what their reasoning was, because there's no logical reason otherwise

why they're doing it.

No, other than just, you know, just trying to.

Danny, are you, we didn't ask, are you going to Bonnaroo?

I am.

What other festivals are you going to?

All right.

I got, on this year is Soul Shine and Bonnaroo and Hinterlands is what I've already booked

up for this year.

And I may try to squeeze in one more if I can.

You're, you're, you're the real deal, man.

That sounds like a, that's, that's a hell of a slate.

Yeah.

Summer camp slash Soul Shine won me over.

That is a, you've never been to that festival and you like a vibe and a crew and a camping

festival that is just a fun time.

I highly recommend going to that one.

It's jam and EDM mostly, but it's, it's a great atmosphere.

Those guys put on a hell of a festival.

What about your Bonnaroo lineup thoughts?

Been plenty spoken of on this show.

I think the headliners were a little bit of a let down, but that undercard and mid card

is fricking outstanding.

That is, I've, I've, there's a lot of gems I'm finding in here too.

I've never ran across and I'm, that's what I love about Bonnaroo is finding this new

stuff and there's so much of it this year.

I'm very pleased.

Like I said, I don't care about the headliners too much, but everyone else definitely four.

Will you attend all three of those the same way?

And in other words, are you in the same tent at each place or do you do them differently

like hotel?

These I, I'm all about camping.

Yeah.

I'll be campers.

So, you know, you know how to camp.

You got your setup.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you love years?

The army didn't hurt either.

Do you do GA camping at Bonnaroo or are you getting into the a la carte VIP stuff?

Last year we did RV.

You know, we did GA the year before that we're going back to GA for this year.

Um, only because they jacked up those RV prices.

So crazy.

And while she was like, they sure did.

So yeah, uh, I'll be back in GA, which I'm actually kind of looking forward to and, uh,

you know, walk over to the robust group and stuff like that whenever I can and hang out

with those guys too.

Nice.

All right.

Cool.

Anything else?

I think that covers it.

I mean, I, you ain't, I think we heard it.

Yeah.

You told me what I was afraid you were going to that.

I thought that this might be what I would hear and I didn't want to hear it.

Um, especially after our local festival, Moon River, uh, has, has taken the year off or

effectively are done.

Um, as Barry mentioned in a group text, as we were talking about, are we going, you know,

we're, I was just like everybody else, I'm going, there's no chance I'm not going.

And of course, who knows if I'm going.

And it was like, well, you know, that's after moon, we're the week after moon river.

I was like, oh shit.

Uh, okay.

I got to rethink this.

Well now September is wide open except for its football season, which doesn't mean as

much to me as it does everybody else.

But it's interesting.

Long time to think about it.

That's the good news.

All right.

And Dan, thank you so much for giving up an hour of your Sunday or more.

And the very informative.

Thanks for having me on.

Well, there you go.

Talk about a roller coaster.

Uh, we spent what?

10 minutes gushing and then got a little reality check.

That's crazy.

And you, you, you, I think you summed it up.

I mean, he said basically, you know what I was afraid to hear.

Yeah.

The emotions went all over the place quickly.

Like, cause I didn't know.

I mean, I didn't know this guy.

I've never met Dan.

And so I didn't know what he was going to say, but I had heard enough that I thought

that there's a chance that this is what he's going to say.

And basically he said, it's awful.

I mean, and, and, and really the user experiences we just talked about the, you know, that's

the, that's as important.

And Tim Kelly, we had on a few weeks back, he was talking about the artist experience.

Like there's the, there's, it's not just a good lineup.

It's got to gel in so many different ways.

And if you can't, if you can't get to anything to make your time more, um, I guess just I'll

use enjoyable because it, I mean, it's not just about, did you see a great set from your

favorite band?

Yeah.

I mean, that is, that is such a, uh, I mean, and it can fluctuate, you know, if you see

a great set, you can put up with, I didn't get water, you know, it balances.

But man, you, it starts with, was it easy to buy tickets?

You know, it literally, was it easy to understand?

Like when I look at their website, didn't really dive into this.

I kind of maybe just hinted at it.

I started looking around now, granted, I'm not buying tickets to festivals as often as

maybe some people are watching or listening to the show do, um, because I'm lucky and

I don't have to, but I looked at the layout and I was like, wait, does this, does this

got this, does this come with it?

Like, so to your point of even just buying the tickets, that's the first start.

That's your first impression.

And if you're just trying to keep your quality of life manageable before you can even wonder

whether you care about that Neil Young said, right.

Oh man, that's a struggle.

And then, and then for me, us five hours away or 10 hours away, we go to Bonnaroo.

I can run home if I forget my blood pressure medication.

Right?

Yeah.

We're, we're fortunate and, and you know, you, I always get made fun of on here, the,

but the part of the Bonnaroo is you're there on the farm.

The decision as to whether to get up off your chair and go see an act you've maybe not heard

of is a made a lot easier because you're there and you're comfortable generally if you, you

know, if you're comfortable and it's set up and yeah, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Once your needs are met, then those decisions do become easier.

Yeah.

So you know, if you're living in a hotel, you know, and you've got to make a 10, 15,

20 minute drive, find a parking space, make that walk, you know, you know, that you're

going to wait, we'd even talk about how long lines were, but just to get in the facility

itself or lack of a better way, put it the venue area itself.

I mean, then you might just think, well, maybe I'll just watch another Seinfeld while I have

a beer or a cocktail, you know?

And I know, I know it sounds like the old man get off my lawn.

I know it does, but it's not wrong.

These are the things that, you know, for, for people who are veterans of these events,

these are the things that we can, well, I'll tell you one thing though.

We talk about, you know, old man, get off my lawn stuff.

This festival is designed for not 23 year olds.

I mean, this is a festival.

I mean, you don't put soul asylum, sun bolt, uh, sunny day real estate, Lyle love it, Chris

Isaac, the wallflowers, the fake beach boys, um, uh, Zach, well, Zach, Brian, maybe, but

Neil Young, you don't put these bands on a list of people that, that aren't going to

want adult comfort.

Exactly.

You're right.

Yeah.

You're not attracting 20 year olds.

You know, as a James McMurtry song, um, something I'm 40 something.

I don't even care.

All I want is a comfortable chair.

You know, I don't want to, I don't want to chair at the show.

I'm sorry for that, but, but same concept is you, we, you gotta be comfortable.

You're not going to have any damn fun.

And yeah, you might not miss Neil Young because he's, who knows if he'll ever play again in

this area, there's a very good chance he never will.

You might not miss that.

You won't miss Zach Brian because he's the biggest act in the world, but all these other

bands, ex ambassadors, maybe that's one, uh, or Melissa Etheridge like, okay, you know

what?

To hell with Melissa.

I mean, we joked, we joked a minute ago with, uh, uh, with Dan, um, about, you know, showing

up and expecting to get front row right away to your point.

That's what this age group thinks, you know, think about that.

The people going to see Neil Young, if they're day, you know, just day ticket, they think

they're going to show up 20 minutes before pull in, walk right up, right?

The Karens are going to be everywhere.

The Karens and the Kyle's are going to be everywhere.

And they're not getting there at noon to get a good spot listening to somebody they never

heard about.

And so you just, you're just going to have to deal with that too.

And you're, and people, some people are just never going to be happy.

So you've got that too.

Um, interesting.

Yeah, it is.

I really want to hear from some other people cause, uh, this has been a yesterday.

Like you said, I was texting, we're going, we're going.

Oh yeah.

We were already, uh, plans.

I literally the day that the festival lineup was released, if it wasn't the day of it was

within 24 hours, right.

At the exact same, roughly the same time I got at my day job, the request for our time

off for the year.

And I, it can be moved and I pick a week in April, a week in September, and then the Bonnaroo

week.

That's luckily, I've been doing this so long that that's my week.

Nobody else can have that week.

Right.

You know, and everybody's okay with that, but the other two are flexible.

And I picked this week in September, you know, I was like, I'm going it's happening.

And now I'm like, well, maybe I'll go to a football game instead.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't have to know now.

That's a good news.

Yeah.

We'll talk more about it then, but, um, all right.

That was good.

Dan, good get a good guess.

Thank you, Dan, for your time.

Good insight.

Yes.

Um, everybody listen to this, like, share, review, uh, do all those things.

The consequence for having us and being part of their network and, uh, what else?

What other business?

Think that's got, if you're here locally in Chattanooga, the stone on air podcast.

There you go.

Listen to Brian.

Thanks for Brian for joining us.

We'll be back in the coming weeks.

We've got more Bonnaroo shows to share.

We've got a lot more to talk about.

Absolutely.

It's festival season.

I'm excited.

I'm going to be warm soon enough.

We'll change the clock soon when life can get back to some normalcy.

The server will be restored soon.

Hey, speaking of, uh, and we talk about this a little bit, but, uh, look, we were, when

we were going through the lineups, uh, we've interviewed a lot of the folks on these lineups

and those shows are pretty evergreen.

I think they're not dated.

So maybe go back and look, uh, Russ has done a great job of archiving all of our shows.

So, you know, uh, there's a bunch of people that are at, at urban and beyond or Bonnaroo

or wherever they check them out.

All right.

Thanks guys.