Bonna-wahoo! Total Recap Bonnaroo 2019

This year, Bonnaroo 2019 blessed nearly 80,000 beautiful souls with an unforgettable experience down in Manchester, TN. The Farm was back and better than ever this year. With new stages, installations and they even brought back Plaza 11 (which hasn’t seen the Bonnaroo maps since 2015). This year, I was invited to attend Bonnaroo as a guest of the Media. Make sure to check out the bottom of this post for some MIND BLOWING photos that my little rave nug @taylor_thehuman took while on media with me!

The Road to Bonnaroo 2019

The road to Bonnaroo this year was a different one than what I have taken in previous years. Although I was still coming from Indianapolis, I was attending ‘Roo as a guest of the Media. This meant there were new obstacles to overcome.

Getting My Media Pass

Overall, there was a lot of mystery surrounding my media pass, however, it didn’t stop me from being extremely excited about the opportunity. The festival provided a location, however, outside of the location, they didn’t provide anything else. There were no directions on where to go when it came to car checks, and when asking people at check-in, they sent us to the wrong line, twice, and at one point, the sheriff’s told us that there actually was no media check-in. However, things were a lot smoother once I finally made it into the venue and got setup. There were a lot of great experiences that I had with my media pass and some not so great experiences. Check out my entire media experience over here.

Oh, the Bonnaroo Line

Waiting in line at a festival is inevitable. However, this year’s Bonnaroo line seemed to be in a particular state of disarray this year. There were exits closed off that, in previous years, were open for use. At one point, traffic was being routed down about 25 miles from the Bonnaroo entrance just to turn around. Not to mention, a person in my groop was unfortunately in line for over 12 hours because they were routed literally around the ENTIRE farm. Although I understand the need to control traffic flow, asking anyone to sit in a car for 12 hours seems a bit much, Bonnaroo. Having a radio station, iTunes station, hell, even an email, tweet, or insta update could have gone a long way to let attendees know what was going on.

On The Farm

Once my car finally made it into the venue, things were rather smooth. Car checks overall took about 10 minutes max. They checked my center console as well as the big blue tub that holds all of our camping gear and our coolers to check for glass. That was it. From there, we were sent on our way through the Farm.

Setting Up Groop Camping

This year, we had a SQUAD of people. Altogether, we had 170+ people camping with us, luckily we were in groop camping so space had already been saved for us! We all showed up when we were able to get in, faced all our cars in towards the campsite. This ensured that if anyone wanted to turn on their car, they wouldn’t fumigate a fellow fester with car fumes. From there, we started setting up canopies in the middle of the site, with our tents off of the canopies. It created almost like a tent town, full of all my favorite people! It was great.

Wednesday Shenanigans

Since we were able to get in around midnight on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, we made it in time for the Bonnaroo 2019 pre-party. One of the best parts of Bonnaroo is that the plazas are constantly having parties, and Wednesday night was no different. In Plaza 9 there was a glo-party, and in another plaza there was a party bus. I was exhausted after sitting in line for hours, so my boyfriend and I crashed early. But our friends rolled in around 3/4 AM from the party. We closed it down for the night and got ready for all the artists that we were so excited to see

Day 1: Cool, Calm, Collected

Day one of Bonnaroo 2019 started off VERY promising. My boyfriend and I woke up to a cool morning, which was uncharacteristic to Bonnaroo. We were able to sleep until about 8am that morning. It was g-l-o-r-i-o-u-s. Once we were up and at ’em though, we got moving. The group decided to start the morning with Asics JoyFlow Yoga in Plaza 2. From there, we headed into Centeroo to do some merch shopping. Rave Hack: Do your merch shopping on the first day to avoid anything you want selling out!

Once we were back at camp, we started looking at the schedule and planning out the rest of our day. We made our way in Centeroo through the back entrance to avoid the long wait/line at the Arch, and headed over to The Other stage. We caught Hekler’s set to start the night and WOW. He threw down. Not only with his own beats, but with oldies/throwbacks that had the crowd singing and screaming along. After that, we camped out for Eprom and were not disappointed. After that, we headed back to the campsite to catch some Zzzs. I did end up missing 12th Planet, but since I’m seeing him at Forest this year I wasn’t too worried.

The end of the night was the most epic. Space Jesus B3B Eprom B3B Shlump blew my MIND. So much weird shit was played, but it was all straight fire. I was floored that it was happening on the FIRST night of Bonnaroo?! The rest of the weekend continued on relatively the same way. Into the sunrise, Space Jesus and Freddy Todd played at Kalliope, as a ‘release party’ of sorts for Freddy’s new EP The Chrondor Era Mixtape.

Day 2: The Buildup

Friday was a little more reckless than Thursday but overall was a tame day. We decided to skip yoga this day and stay in camp to make breakfast (eggs, toast, and hashbrowns *yuuum*). My boyfriend and I decided to start the day seeing the Avett Brothers. They aren’t EDM, but a live act that I highly encourage anyone to catch! After that, we headed over to catch Griz at the Which Stage and then mosied over to The Other for Jade Cicada and Liquid Stranger.

Jade Cicada ended up being the best surprise show of Bonnaroo 2019 for me. I wasn’t familiar with him before, but his live set was amazing. Deep bass with beautiful visuals and lasers to go along with them. Liquid Stranger also really showed up for the show. He was able to play a lot of different things for the audience, and even brought up some special guests!

Day 3: And We’re Off to the Races

Saturday was the busiest day of the weekend for me. There were so many great acts going on, I ended up running all over the Farm to catch them at different stages. The first show I caught was one I had been looking forward to for a while, Whipped Cream. She played an amazing set, bringing the crowd to a scream of excitement. After that, I headed over to Hozier to catch the end of his set, and then move to the main stage to campout for Odesza.

The crowd at Odesza was insane, and in the end, my boyfriend and I decided to leave the crowd and get a spot sitting down. Although we weren’t right up front, the production from where we were was fantastic. Not to mention that the crowd was phenomenal to watch from a distance. Towards the end of Odesza, Space Jesus was on The Other, so I quickly headed over there to get my weird on.

To finish off the mad dash, my friends and I quickly headed to Post Malone and I’m SO happy that we didn’t miss it. The show as great, and he was so entertaining- even all the way in the back. After that, in true fashion, my squad and I closed the night down with Gramatik and Zhu at The Other. Zhu’s set was really surprising for me. Although it wasn’t what I was expecting, it was clear that he’s very talented, singing more or less everything live for the crowd.

Day 4: Closing it Down @ The Other

Sunday was definitely the burn-out day for most of the festival attendees of Bonnaroo 2019. Obviously, there were still those people going as hard as ever, but more people were sitting down on this day than any of the other days.

My boyfriend and I spent the day hanging out at The Other stage. We did catch a few other sets off of The Other, like Lil Dicky, Cardi B and Walk The Moon. The first I stayed and watched was AC Slater, which was a great set! I loved all the housey vibes that he was putting out for the crowd. After that, G Jones came on. I wasn’t expecting a lot from this set, since I’ve seen him almost 5 times in the past year alone, but the set was GREAT. Not only did he play the fan favorites like Helix, but he also played some unreleased music which was even BETTER.

Closing down The Other was ILLENIUM. I’ve always been a huge fan of him, although I wouldn’t consider myself an Illenial, I would deff. say I’m a follower. His set was epic and heavy, and he even played all the songs that the crowd could sing along too. One of my favorite things about festivals is when the crowd can sing along louder than the music.

Packing Up & Heading Home

Initially, we were planning on heading home on Monday morning on a full night of sleep. That isn’t necessarily how it panned out though. We packed up the majority of our things on Sunday morning, like our canopy, table- essentially anything aside from just our tent and sleeping gear. When checking the forecast, a storm was supposed to come in late Sunday so after ILLENIUM, we called it a Roo and headed back home.

In The End

This year’s experience was by far the best, even though it was much more crowded than in previous years. Bonnaroo 2019 had a few hiccups in the beginning with their routing of traffic and communication with TDOT, but once inside the venue things were smooth sailing. The volunteers were amazing and kind, and the security team was friendly to boot.

The grounds were exceptionally clean when we arrived, and Centeroo was even cleaner. The staff was always helpful when we needed something too. The Media tent inside of Centeroo had wifi and air conditioning which was also a great escape during the heat. Even though the beginning of it was a little rough, Bonnaroo was a beautiful experience and one that I look forward to every year.