The music festival landscape is fast and wide. Luckily you have the what podcasts by your
side at all times, which bands this year that matter with Barry Courter, Brad Steiner, Lord
taco diving into the world and music industry music festivals and everything in between.
Another one starts right now.
Welcome into The What Podcast, which bands this year that matter over the years, we have
talked to countless bands, artists and festival goers every now and then. We like to take
a look back at some of the best moments of the what podcasts five or so minutes in what
we call cleverly a high five. Another great moment from the what podcast right now.
You're really good at this. I have no idea what's happening. What's amazing about this
is that this, this when I was in group care, regular camping 15, 16 years ago, there was,
it never felt like there was this type of community where they, you like take something
from the outside world and bring it in and then like make it a thing, a communal thing.
Right. How long have you guys been doing this? So we've actually been, we're with Camp Red
Roo and we've been in group camping since they started out in 2012. Stephen Polowski
set us up at the time. The concept was since they're letting us camp together for just
a little extra fee, why don't we set up a burn structure inside of Bonnaroo to begin
with and have our own little community of friends. And we're all the common thread is
Reddit and we thought, I mean, since we're all friends from the internet, why not make
it open invitation? Are you guys beer guys to begin with? Yes and no in that I can Bible
a lot and I've started to learn things about them as I've been Bible them and how it affects
your body. It affects it. Well, you look good. Thank you. Thank you. I rolled out of bed.
My dad and mom gave me the seed money, but I grew this myself. So Mitchell, what was
the, did you ever envision this? We did not. And I actually have a Polaroid of the very
first beer exchange. Uh, the reason why we did it is because, um, this guy posted on
the subreddit for Bonnaroo that he wants to trade beers. And since we had a group camp,
we're like, well, why don't you just meet at our place and it'll be fine. Um, so we
set up the time. We only had 16 people show up in 2014 for the first beer exchange. I
have a Polaroid of all 16 of us besides myself. And it was, do you remember any of the beers?
Yes. Florida cracker is actually from the telehassee brewing cigar, cigar city, cigar
city. Yeah. Um, and the only thing I found this, the guy that set up the whole thought
process, we told him to show up at 12 PM seven hours later, the guy whose brainchild this
was shows up like Atlas carrying this giant case of beer, like a giant cooler. And he's
like, this is where the beer exchange was. And we're like, yes, sir. And he goes, I,
I, my friend made me try something for the first time and I've been wandering for hours.
Please just take beer. And he plops it down and he literally just starts pointing at people
and saying, what's your favorite beer? And then he pulls out an amalgamation really close
to what their favorite is from some local Florida brewery. And he's, he's my little,
he's my hero. This guy didn't even come to Bonnaroo by the way. He wasn't here. He just
was walking around with a giant thing of beer. No, like no joke from the sounds of things
he, I think what he did was he loved this cooler for three hours to no avail, went back,
put it down, went to sleep for two hours, picked it back up and then found us finally.
And he just kept the whole beer. Uh, so this is nuts. I mean, but from 16 people, this
is pandemonium. So it was, and I love it. What I love about it the most, I hate to interrupt
is how organized it is. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's a trial and error. As much of a disaster as
it is because there's so many people, how can you, it's, it does pretty well. Yeah.
It's definitely trial and error. Like every year we've all, we've, we've learned something
different to do. We've, uh, you know, you can see the crowds out here, like of the different
type of type of trading methods there are a lot of, there are some people that bring
a lot of beer. There's some people that only bring a six pack. So it really became a, okay,
what do we do to accommodate this? How do we get these people in? How do we get this?
How does we get this many people in this little bitty space? So over the years it's a, yeah,
it's really just trial and error, but we, uh, we actually have a committee. Uh, we have
a, one of our leaders at overseas kind of event. Um, and she kind of takes, this is
like a business expedition. We have a Slack channel and we start planning in a, uh, generally
around January, February, whenever the group camping opens up. There's swag. Yeah. You
just said that, right? We have, we have committees that have merged. We have, uh, we delegation
is absolute key. Uh, cause I, this is my vacation too. And it's, it's, it's fun hurting cats,
but it's a lot easier if, uh, the cats heard themselves. And what's even better is that
they're, they're actually pretty good beers here. And if I would have known beforehand
how this was all working, I would have figured this out because you basically just bring
one, leave one, or you can trade on the street. Like, you know, humans should do. This is
like shakedown street just came to you. Yeah. The whole concept was, I mean, the whole concept
was, you know, when I'm coming from this part of the country, you're coming from that part
of the country. It's like, what beers do you have? Cause you know, a lot of people aren't
fortunate enough to travel and go and try new beers and stuff. And so like this community
was about, it really was for beer lovers. Um, and it's really became something special
to where it's like every year that you come, a lot of these guys that are here are veterans
that we see the same faces for the last five, six years. And I always talk to some of them
and they always say, well, next year I'm going to get a beer for somewhere I haven't got
a beer from. So it becomes like a game every year.
Thank you for listening to another high five clip on the what podcast. We are part of the
consequence podcast network. You can listen to the full episode at the what podcast.com
or consequence.net or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thank you again for listening
and please like and share.
