2020 Changes

There has been no one that has taken over the Zeitgeist of 2019 than Lizzo

And it is apropos that on the day that we are recording this, I checked on Reddit and found out that there is a leak, a possible leak, as to who the headliners are for Bonnarooo 2020.

And on the top line, you've got Tool, you've got Taimanpala, and Lizzo.

I saw it.

Alright, so we'll get into that here in a second, but there's so much to talk about and I guess the moment demands us to talk a little Bonnarooo.

In the middle of the winter, in the middle of our deathly cold Arctic blast that's taken over Chattanooga, Tennessee, I guess it's time for us to talk a little bit of Bonnarooo.

It feels, just feels so right.

It feels right. So wherever you may be in the Arctic blast that you're feeling, we're feeling it too. That's Barry Courter from the Chattanooga Times Free Press, I'm Brad.

From HITS96 Radio in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Now, I guess this is not an official third season episode.

It's really not an official episode whatsoever.

It's just two dopes talking Bonnarooo for Bonnarooians by Bonnarooians.

I guess we can start into the changes and some of the things that you actually broke during our live show at Demoxxy with the Roobus guys.

Right. Well, I wanted to mention that.

If you guys haven't heard that, please go back and listen.

Nice of those guys to come up.

You know, the more I think about that, that's a heck of a thing.

They made an effort.

I mean, you and I rolled down the hill.

Yeah.

We did set up camp, so to speak.

But yeah, you think about it.

Do you think Brad and Barry are driving to Alabama?

Probably not going to happen.

I don't know.

But they were so kind and they were so much fun.

And not only did they come to us, they also we also got joined by our guys Mitch from Camp Ritteroo.

Yeah, they were phenomenal.

That show was so much fun.

Yeah, Mitch and Kevin from which which will come up again in our conversation here in a few minutes.

Is it going to imagine?

Sure. Group camping is affected by these changes.

That's right.

So, yeah, but that was really cool of them to come up and just sort of reemphasize the whole, you know, you're kind of half joking about here it is November and we're doing a Bonnarooo episode.

It's become a year round thing.

It is.

And like I said in that show, if you haven't heard it, I just love seeing Bonnarooo people in the wild because when you see them, you just get this big grin, big goofy grin on your face and you just want to hug everybody.

Yeah, I remember after about the second or third year and the whole, you know, radiate positivity, though, to be honest, I don't think I knew it in that phrase.

But it was I remember thinking, why can't people leave here and be nice all the time?

Yeah, well, pick up their own trash.

I understand.

Well, you have this thing called cable news.

You can turn it on and all hell breaks loose.

Yeah, but the point being that's what Daniel and the Roobus and those guys are preaching.

And so, you know, boy, do they live it.

They live it.

I mean, that's what I mean.

They live it.

That's what I mean.

I mean, he has got it.

I mean, it's not just it's not just a thing for him.

That's who he is.

Yeah.

And that's how that whole group is.

And, you know, I wish that I had a little bit more of that.

I wish I just shred more of it.

A couple of minutes a day, maybe.

No, that's that's an awful lot to ask me.

Very awful lot.

But yeah, back to your question and your point.

Yes.

On our episode, thanks to Jeff Cuellar with AC Entertainment, he was kind enough to that morning,

give me a call and say, hey, the focus, the big change focus for this year is going to be traffic getting people in and out of their campsites.

And we saw the result of that when this weekend.

When did those those maps come out?

Well, I think that I think that when you say things like when you said it, I guess it didn't really resonate with me as much as it probably should have.

Like, OK, that's cute.

They're going to do some they're going to do some traffic things.

Adorable.

Yeah.

But I forget how impactful that is to someone's overall general disposition.

Well, you are.

We admit that we are very upfront about that.

Well, I guess it's because it's not just being spoiled and being where we are.

It's it's just such a pedestrian thing that I thought they would have figured out by now.

It's pedestrian until you're sitting in your vehicle.

Exactly.

Five hours, nine hours.

And then it's you know, it's all about whose ox is being gored, which is again, some of the point of the changes that are being made.

You know, we have to remind ourselves that what, 60 percent of the people are brand new each year.

Right.

So they will have no idea the changes.

Yeah.

One. And number two, it's it's whose ox is being gored.

And if you by the way, that's another one.

Put it down in the Barry book.

Who's right there with Bob's Bob's your uncle.

You have some of the strangest old man phrases.

I love them.

Now, granted, I love them because you are my you're my Bonnaroo dad.

But ox is being gored, you're going to have to help me on that.

I I keep telling you, Brad, read a book.

Put the phone down and read a book.

I'm still trying to get around your columns.

How can I read a book?

So no, but pedestrian meaning it is something that if it's not sexy, it's not line up, it's not artists.

I agree.

And I'll put it this way.

If you're going to claim to be they don't claim this, but we do claim to be the best ran music festival in the country.

You got to do the pedestrian stuff right.

Yeah. Listen, the things that we have talked about, the things that talked about before we started this podcast and then since.

I mean, listen, for 10 years, every time I wrote a story, I mentioned that they planted grass and trees.

I don't know how pedestrian that is, but but it changed the difference.

Now, five years later, it really matters.

It makes a huge difference.

I mean, we laugh about that Dust Bowl year.

We don't have those anymore, you know, because they planted this particular type of grass that's tougher and stands up to 80,000 people and weather and rain.

So, again, that's not something that happens overnight.

It's not something that is sexy.

I don't think anybody, unless you've been there and stood ankle deep in mud, would ask for better grass.

Yeah.

But until it happens and you see the result of it.

So, man, I can't believe this is just hitting me.

But there is a reason why the dust is so much less.

There's a reason.

It's because of the grass.

Right.

And I'll never forget that year stunk.

I mean, I was miserable by Sunday.

I can't forget being on the on the bleachers for iron and wine and looking back and I saw nothing below me.

It was nothing but dust.

I was convinced I had come home with Legionnaires disease.

I still am not 100 percent sure I don't have some some hangover.

They're not going to get rid of all the dust.

There's going to be dust.

There's going to be a lot of coughing.

And I mean, we have one guy at camp that literally all day, every day, all he does.

It drives me crazy.

But there's going to be that.

But you're right.

That's an outdoor festival.

But there's but that's that's what's so fascinating about, I guess now I think about it, the unsexy stuff.

It's these things that they put into effect that you don't even realize until maybe three, four years down the road.

Like, oh, yeah, they did do that.

That's right.

They changed all that.

And I bet that, you know, the one that you're going to notice the most this year, if I had to guess, it probably won't be where they arranged campsites and planted trees and where they didn't.

But this year, changing up the which stage, which I I know that I've been very critical and I've gotten people to yell at me about this.

I know that they've gotten very upset with me about this.

But to have the best sounding stage of any stage I have ever heard in the country on the what it is damn near the best stage I have ever heard to go one hundred and fifty yards to its right.

And here, maybe one of the worst sounding stages in all the festival in all the festival in the country of any festival in the country is stunning to me.

And how that works and why it has had such a problem has never made any sense to me.

And I've asked people who know this and know better than I and they can't even give me a straight answer.

In fact, I've even known one of the guys that ran the sound there and he still can't give me an answer for it.

Yeah. What's a different shape space? I don't know.

I'm just guessing that's not my expertise.

I've never sat 30, 40, 50 feet from a stage and not been able to hear anything.

It is fascinating to me how strange all the stages can sound good.

And then the witch, it's like somebody hits the mute button.

Yeah. The other point, and it's similar, is, you know, this is 20 years old, but they can't fix everything all at once.

It's a year like this one.

It's like eating the elephant. Yes.

Well, that one I do know. You do know that one?

I need like a color chart for you.

But the witch stage, I don't know what they mean by changes that they're making.

I wish that somebody could, especially Jeff or somebody can explain to me what it is.

You know, they added the screen a couple of years back.

They dressed it up a little bit differently last year.

But, you know, what do they mean from what I'm what I've gathered is that they're making that as big of an operation as the what stage.

And they want that to be a subheadliner sort of space that could equal as big as a headliner.

I wonder if they would eliminate the single show onlys like we've had with McCartney and some of those where they, you know, nothing else is playing.

I don't think so.

But the way that I took what was being told to me was that they were going to be going much later with that stage at night.

With the witch? Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah.

I don't know. And take that for a grain of salt.

That's not I'm not saying that I have information about it, but it makes sense that they're going to try and create a much more headline headliner friendly space over there on the way than it ever has.

And I'm definitely going to sound like the old man here.

But I remember the year the first year we media used to stay in what was basically the area where the calliope stage is that the VIP area just to the whatever that is west of the witch.

And it was a wide open field with one tree.

Yeah, it sucked.

It was hotter than 40 hells.

They moved us.

We I went up there already for that.

And I remember couldn't find it.

And my contact couldn't help me.

So I driving around and they put us in the trees.

And I remember spending about 30 or 40 minutes complaining that I was now going to be farther away than what I was used to.

And how could they do this?

And what were they thinking?

And, you know, why didn't anybody ask me kind of thing?

And then it dawned on me there were trees and along with trees come shade.

Yeah, so a lot more space.

My point being, you know, I don't I don't not giving them a pass on every change because they they do make mistakes.

Squarch, cough, squarch.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, it's I'm kind of and I think you and I have learned this.

You remember three years ago when we started seriously really doing this, how puckered we were that we weren't even going to go.

They were making to me changes.

They were not being kind to us.

And live nation, blah, blah, blah.

And we had what one of the best years?

Yeah.

Personally, not musically necessarily, but best years ever.

So I'm a little bit more of a wait and see in part because of what we talked about on that episode, the last episode that these are changes that they've studied.

They think they have a solution or at least the start of a solution on how to get people into their campsites quicker.

And this these are the results of some of that.

And getting you into your campsite quicker.

That's probably why they add another.

They change up the tiers of tickets a little bit and not just GA.

Now they have GA plus whatever in the world that means.

But they say GA plus is entrance lane into center.

It's a fast track getting you into center from your campsite shade fans, comfortable seating, center lounge, air conditioned restrooms, et cetera.

And, you know, you're talking tier one on Black Friday.

That's a four hundred ninety dollar ticket.

That's for GA plus.

You know, you have to figure out whether or not the extra two hundred dollars is worth it.

I don't know.

You know, but some people would give two hundred dollars for a faster track into center room.

Absolutely. I'm telling you, I can't imagine sitting in a car for nine hours going two feet, you know, or 40 feet or whatever.

So I'm like you.

What about a fast lane for beer?

Because they're giving that to with a GA plus ticket.

You got that fast track to beer.

Now they're thinking.

Yeah. Right.

Which, by the way, I know this doesn't have anything to do with the changes, but I do want to inform you on something that I found out.

I was pretty startled as to how much money PBR paid for their sponsorship rights to be the beer sponsor for Bonnarooo last year.

I think it would stun you as to how low it actually was.

Now, I don't know what Miller paid when Miller Lite was the sponsor.

And they had their own wing of the festival.

You know, they had like a private place where you could go.

And Miller had a much bigger footprint.

So it was going to cost them a lot more money.

But from what I was told, PBR only paid one hundred thousand dollars to be there, to be the premier beer sponsor at every beer stand in the festival.

That doesn't seem for me.

If I'm PBR, that's a steal.

I'll take it. I'll take it every weekend.

I don't know. I don't know how that works out.

I know, you know, when we talk to a pizza guy, spicy pie, these festivals pretty much pay the bills.

He just has to do a couple of these.

They turn out a lot of product.

So let's go through some of the other changes.

They're changing the campsites and moving group camping into a different space.

Now, I know that that is going to upset the groupers, right?

The group campers. That makes sense.

I know why they're upset. Change is very uncomfortable.

They are basically giving you a whole plaza.

They're giving you a 24 hour plaza now.

As I'm not a grouper.

So the group people are going to have to explain to me, does that make it a little bit better for you?

If you had one plaza that you could go to 24 hours and, you know, shows happening at all hours in the night and the activity that you see in some of the other plazas, that seems to me like a pretty good deal.

Yeah, I agree.

It depends on what they put in there and we have heard from those people, including Daniel and Charlotte and those guys last week.

You know, they go for the group camping.

The lineup is not necessarily top of the list.

So does that mean they skip one fewer? I mean, one more show a day or two more?

Do they just hang out in camp? I don't know.

It's some of those walks from some of those plazas are pretty good ways.

You know, and like I do, you make fun of me, but it's just as easy to sit around camp and have a good time sometimes as it is to go to make that track.

So, yeah, they're moving group farther.

I think the biggest complaint that I saw from some of the online guys about it is that it's farther away from pod six, you know, where they had some of the other the other events and they move in tent camping as well.

But so the tent camping thing is the one thing that I can probably understand the criticisms on.

It doesn't really make sense as to why they move tent camping unless you're trying to think that they're trying to squeeze a little bit more money out of you.

Look, if you are a tent only camper and you park your car forever away and then decide to walk all of your gear into the tent only camping, that to me is pretty substantial.

And I find that to be a pretty good, you know, trade off.

But to ask them to then walk a little bit further and more only to be further away from the entrance is a little strange.

It's a little strange if if nothing else, it's strange, but it does feel a little bit like trying to get you into that GA plus sort of tier.

Don't you think I'm sure there's some of that?

Yeah, I mean, these guys are business people.

I'm sure it's yeah, let's give you something, but you're going to pay for it, which, you know, we can do.

That's how it works.

Yeah, well, when you go back and you look after we talked about the traffic problems on the last show, Ruebus did a poll.

Did you notice this poll that he did on Twitter?

If you follow him at the real Ruebus, he asked basically how long the line did you have in 2019 under an hour, one to three hours, three to six hours, more than six hours.

There are 400 votes, one to three hours and 33 percent.

Twenty six percent of people said more than six hours, a quarter of respondents said more than six hours.

That is unbelievable.

Somebody pointed out I was reading some of that today, too, on Reddit, and I'd forgotten about the rain.

You know, the rain hit right as we were getting there anyway on that that Wednesday night.

I know a lot of people were already in because they start moving them as soon as they can.

But that rain delayed things what? Yeah, it's good. Flowers.

And it feels like it always rains that Wednesday.

It feels like it rains every Wednesday before a bond.

One guy responded to us, Robert Pesta, 15 hours he waited from 2 p.m. Wednesday to 630 a.m. Thursday.

What a weird wake up call that is. Six thirty a.m.

Hey, all right. Come on. Wow. That hurts my body. Yeah, that hurts, too.

I mean, you got to roll over every so often. Did I miss it? Did I sleep through it? No, there's no.

Yeah, you can't sleep. It's too. It's awful. It's too much worry.

The first year, if you remember, the traffic on the freeway was a disaster.

It's lined up almost all the way here to Chattanooga, it seemed like they fixed that pretty quickly.

They moved everybody to the shoulder. So, you know, it didn't tie up interstate traffic.

Yeah, I did ask Jeff because, you know, we had the exit 111 festival on the same site, what, three months ago.

September, if they learned anything from that experience, because it was a lot smaller and he said, not a thing.

I don't mean to sidetrack here, but, you know, when they I'd love to hear the conversations

as to what they start saying in those planning meetings as to how they're going to fix certain problems.

Because, you know, this dumb guy, I'm just going to say, well, why don't you just let people come earlier?

Yeah. You know, just open it up Monday. See how many people come Monday.

Because it sounds to me like most of the problem is because people decide to come on Wednesday and they're not ready and they get stuck there.

And because, you know, you hear all these responses, most of the responses like, well, if you I showed up Thursday,

I left four hours later than you and got in four hours early or I waited 15 minutes on a Thursday.

When you guys waited 15 hours on a Wednesday afternoon, how they've come up with the solution is where I'm so fascinated and.

Well, and it's not only two. Like we've talked to what people who said,

just because you're first in line doesn't mean you're getting the primo space.

Right. Well, they're changing that too.

All the way to the back. Well, they're changing that again this year too.

And first come first served. The earlier you get there, the closer you are going to be to the entrance.

Now, again, you know what that's going to do. That sounds to me like a problem in the making.

You've got people waiting until, you know, for four days wanting to get up front.

Yeah. And, you know, we've had what private conversations with a couple of people who have said the whole it becoming a Wednesday now through Monday event is not what they had in mind.

It was supposed to be basically a Friday through. OK, well, talk this out with me for a second, though.

And I know that there's going to be, you know, problems that I don't know.

Granted. But what is the holdup? What is the problem with opening it up on a Wednesday or open it up? Is it like? Yeah.

I mean, you put on events to have people just hang out on a Tuesday night.

You tell me you put on all kinds of events. If you have a two o'clock show,

do you want to be there at nine a.m. because somebody wants to hang out and be responsible for the setup of the plazas and all that don't have to change.

But why why not let people if there is an opportunity to let them in on a Tuesday night?

If they still got all the you got to have porta potties, you got to have security, you got to have staff.

You can't just let people in to the field. OK. I mean, that would be disaster.

Is it? These are the things that I was dumb guy that was. I mean, I mean, all right.

So if you went up Tuesday, that means you and they're not ready.

You're avoiding security checks. So you're just taking anything in with you that you want.

And now if I'm if I'm the Bonnarooo people, am I supposed to go back on Wednesday night

and start checking your car that's already been parked for two days? I mean, that ain't going to work.

So, yeah, no. And I mean, it's it's you know, for years, people got there early and Wal-Mart

let them sit in that parking lot. And then it became so big that Bonnarooo started letting them in

because they'd rather have the city of Manchester, I've been told.

And I can see the logic would rather them be inside Bonnarooo and be their responsibility

than be on the streets of Manchester and be their response.

I never did understand why Wal-Mart didn't just call, you know, somebody in nationally.

Hey, we come play a show in our parking lot.

They did have shows there. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure they had like makeshift people like show up and just start playing.

They had somebody come and play. I don't know. They have the pre-show the night before. Right.

Well, I know. I know. Like the Waffle House did it one year like Waffle House off on the grounds

like decided to do a show in the parking lot. But yeah, Wal-Mart, what a great what a great turn it into.

They were pretty much doing doing similar. But, you know, it's a litigious society and liability.

And whose fault is it if something bad happens? And so, no, I get it. I don't know what the and I get people,

especially if I'm driving across country or from, you know, up east, I want to get there.

So I understand people thinking we'll get there Wednesday and get on in.

But so I don't know. And I'm like you. I've always heard people who left Thursday morning

had a much shorter time to get in because everybody crushes to get in. Yeah.

And then if it happens like last year where you have rain right at that key time where they shut everything down,

you got those delays. Yeah. All right. So other changes that they they've got other than traffic stuff?

Just some of the VIP stuff, right? They're putting what the platinum group over somewhere around us. Right.

Yeah, they still haven't figured out their their footing after Roll Like a Rock star went away.

And I'll be honest with you, these platinum people now, God bless you.

God bless you if you've got the money to do this. But, you know, these guys get better access than most of the artists.

Yeah. You know, it's really they get treated very really frustrating to me sometimes.

If I'm if they're asking me if I'm a Visa platinum card holder or whatever the hell they ask me, it's very frustrating.

What do they have like laundry service meals, two meals a day, stuff like that?

Well, that's something we should have brought to Camp Laundry Service.

Can we make that happen? That's a good idea. That'd be funny, wouldn't it?

Yeah. My worst camp idea ever.

You know, we try to come up with dumb, goofy ideas for Camp Nut Butter every year.

And one year I had the stupidest idea of bringing a kiddie pool. Yeah, it was dumb. That was really dumb.

That surprises me, actually. The germaphobe bringing the pastry dish.

Didn't think it through. Yeah, it was one and done.

Yeah. So then they so they're they're they're moving a little bit of the platinum people.

They're rearranging VIP a little bit. It's you know, sounds to me in that press release that they acknowledge that they moved the hill.

Just say it. I'm putting that out there. If you reread the press release, it sounds to me like they're talking about how they've already moved the hill.

But you may read it a little differently than I. I'm pretty sure that I do.

But the thing that that is going to cause the most ripples outside the traffic, the calliope stage is no longer.

Now, again, great news for these guys may not be great news for you if you really, really like the calliope stage.

Now, did we get it's a little redundant. I always thought I thought it was a tad redundant to have the calliope on one side and then the other.

They're doing nonstop EDM as well. It just seemed a tad redundant. They're combining the two and they're going to an all night thing at the other, which makes so much more sense.

OK, well, that's what I wondered. I never saw the for sure where it would go because they couldn't obviously get rid of EDM.

But yeah, I agree. It made very little sense to me to have both.

You've got this basically one whole corner of the center dedicated to EDM.

And then you're going to stick over there by which which they sure were not going to put it next to the platinum.

No, that's the thing that the reason why they got rid of calliope.

I'm making this clear to you. My opinion is because the platinum people were complaining about it because it was too loud and lasted all night.

Yeah, because on the other side of that very, very thick impenetrable wall of plywood, people who just paid like three thousand dollars, they paid a lot of money.

Probably want to get a night's sleep. No possible way they were keeping it there.

Though I don't know why, but that stage never bothered me.

I get up early anyway, but I don't know why it never bothered me.

And we had a ball there that one night after Gucci Mane at 830 in the morning.

There are plenty of people in our space that it bothers.

I have I have grown after 15 years of this, I've just grown accustomed to sleeping through it.

It doesn't like it doesn't really bother me.

I'm not looking to get, you know, verge of death level sleep anyway.

That's not really what I'm looking for. I'm going to be OK.

But they're combining the two. And from what I understood, the calliope, that was a purchased thing.

Like they actually have to pay a service and a company to do that.

So that is one less expense that they have to incur.

But yeah, it makes sense with all the smoke and fire and the events around it, I guess.

The rule, the thought, the rumor was they were going to put it somewhere else.

I've heard that they're not bringing back at all.

So, you know, if it if it shows up in camp and shows up in, you know, where in the woods or whatever.

So cool. But I've I've sort of gotten the impression that it's not coming back at all,

which makes you start to ask yourself what in the world happens to that corner?

Because it used to be it used to be the comedy tent. Right.

Does that mean they're bringing the comedy tent back? I don't know.

That was always the weirdest thing.

It was cool that they had it, but it was so limited as to how many people could get in there.

I never quite. It was limited.

And I know a lot of standup comics and I've not heard many of them say nice things about it.

They don't like the experience. They don't like being there.

If I had to put my money on something, I would not be putting it on a comedy tent coming back.

You know, they have a theater, right? They already show movies.

They have a theater tent. Yeah.

To me, like I said, they when you're sitting down making a list of cool things

we'd like to have at our festival that I could see that coming up, you know,

and and I don't think I ever saw a show in there.

I think the first year I went, it was the place you went to get air condition.

I've seen a few things in there. So Louis C.K. as a rich boss, Jim Norton,

tried to get into the Conan thing that year. It just didn't didn't work out.

Well, they did him on the big screen outside, didn't they?

When it Conan that they did. Yeah, you could watch it there.

That was cool. Yeah. This field next to it.

It was it was relatively small. The line was forever.

You had to stay there forever. And it just look logistically.

I don't think it works. And I don't think that the comedians like it to begin with.

So I agree. And they tried what?

Do you having them on the stages, the music stages before acts that doesn't it's dude doesn't work.

That is so dumb. We said it last year before the thing that it's just dumb.

Nobody like comics do not perform that way.

And first off, it's called stand up comedy because they're the ones standing up.

It doesn't work when everybody else is standing. Yeah, fair enough.

Just doesn't work. Just there's no reason for them to be there.

It's nice if they want to show up and, you know, be an emcee of a stage.

Now, I wouldn't mind that coming back. We talked about this on the Roo Bus podcast.

David Byrne curated an entire stage five years ago. Right.

And got to got to basically bring who he wanted to on stage.

Man, I really do wish there were those days were back.

I wish that Dan Arbok could do one stage entirely for the weekend.

Yeah, you know, I asked a couple of the AC guys about that, the whole collaboration, which was such a cool thing.

Like you said, I guess they are doing it now. They're doing in the plaza.

It's fewer. Yeah, they are.

But they said, you know, and it was the same conversation where I asked about, are they doing shorter sets?

Remember, that was an issue with with you. I still don't think they told you the truth.

Well, the answer was it's what they're asking, what the shows are asking.

And I could I could see it in one sense because a lot of these guys, it's what they do night in and night out.

And so on the one hand, I could see, you know, it's a lot of work and effort to change things up.

But on the other hand, for some of them anyway, I could see, yeah, that's a lot of that's different.

That's what we want to do. I think there's maybe fewer of those.

But I do miss it, too. Those were the surprise. Look, hey, look who's in the wings. Come on out.

Yeah. So that corner is going to turn into something.

My bet is if I if it's not going to be a comedy, look, I just don't think the content is coming back.

If I had to guess, it's going to be something major sponsor related.

Yeah, it's going to be a VIP type of area. We won't see it.

Which, by the way, the VIP tent next to the witch, I've never understood why that's there.

It feels like it feels like it's so in the way on the other side of the fence.

Yes. Yeah. On the other side of the walkway.

I mean, where the where the Cray Musty's are, where the jalapeno corn dogs are on the left as you're walking, you know,

towards the witch, right? You're on the right side of the road.

You get the jalapeno corn dogs on the left and on the right right before the exit to go back to our camp.

You've got the VIP free drink area. It's never made much sense there.

So it's sort of in the way.

And then they have another tent that used to be that is where guest camping was.

And I've been in there twice when they did the the introduction induction presentation for Bob Weir and the edge to the guitar.

And I don't remember the exact thing, but they had like a dinner in there.

I told you I was one of the most awkward where you got to sit there and watch people.

I was like the help. The first year was terrific.

The second year we got to stand around outside of the tables and watch people like all of a sudden.

You're a member of the Downton Abbey staff. That's exactly what I felt like.

That's a story. That's a story for another day.

Please hold on to that story because it's a really, really good one.

Let's see. Anything else to go through when it comes to changes before we get into some of these rumors and news?

I mean, to me, it's just kind of let's wait and see.

And I mean, it sounds so buying in type of thing.

They're trying to deal with the traffic. They have to do something.

And they obviously have a plan. And I think as we keep saying, they want you to come back.

You know, that's the difference about this festival is it doesn't feel like they're trying to stick it to you at every turn.

They're trying to make it make it a better experience.

That is a really good point. And I think that's why I defend it so much.

And this reason why I like doing this so much is because I never as a consumer, I never feel taken for granted.

And I like brands who don't insult my intelligence and don't try to lie to me.

And they don't do that. They do not do that.

They're pretty upfront with with their their misgivings and the things that they succeed at.

They don't pat themselves on the back very often.

They have guys like us to do that. But more often than not, they get it right.

And they get these things, especially the big things, they get it right.

And they never take you for granted when they do it.

I think I lose the lose sight of that too often.

No, that's I think I think that's the thing.

I never feel like their hands in my wallet. I take that back.

We talk about that when they the first year that we started seeing the VIP tent near where you're talking about.

That was awkward to me. That was like, oh, man, this thing is taking a turn and I don't like where it's going.

But if we go back, that's sort of part of the progression of what we've been talking about.

You know, they did the trees, they did the grass.

Then they put the bath or they put the VIP and then the bathroom.

So it was it was just the exact same thing we're talking about with this parking.

You can't do it all at once.

They needed to find a way to get more money and more experiences for people who were willing to pay.

Put it that way. You can say it was sellout.

You can say it changed the whole jam band hippie fest thing.

But they obviously saw a opportunity to sell VIP experiences.

And they did. For me, it felt weird that year. Looking back, I get it.

Yeah, sure. You know, they did that.

Now they're doing the experiences out in the plaza.

You've got to pick and choose. They can't just fix everything all at once.

Yeah. And, you know, they think that they have something really strong with these plazas.

They really think they've got they've got a they got a hidden secret, a hidden gem with these plazas.

And I would not be surprised if, you know, you don't see a ton of money being poured into, you know,

making the plaza show something even even more special.

That's why I would I would caution anybody that's in the group to get too upset about being moved into a like your own plaza thing from.

So because what I'm understanding, like that's at least from where I was last year when we went out to the Camp Retiroo,

I didn't see a plaza anywhere near it.

Now, maybe they don't want to know what to be honest.

It sounds to me like a pretty good trade off.

To be honest, other than the fact that the Retiroo guys were there and they were having that awesome beer exchange,

I'm not sure that was the camp I wanted to be in, you know, given what we've seen in some of the others.

So maybe they fixed that.

The other thing, and I don't know if you want to explore it, get into it kind of, but it's along those same lines.

I think Kevin made a great point during that last podcast about the cost of the artist skyrocketing.

You made this exact same point, you know, you're not going to get artists A, B, C, and D because that's already five million dollars.

The combination of having these plazas and those experiences at a lot less amount can make a lot more people happier maybe than the Beatles or the Rowlings,

you know, artists, whatever at two million dollars.

And so I think as from a business standpoint that makes a lot of sense, they've realized that if we sell the experience,

it doesn't matter so much the lineup, you know what I mean?

And we can spend money on the experience and have control over that versus who knows what artists are available each year.

That is a great point. You know, you almost insulate yourself from a bad music cycle.

Exactly.

Because you've created something that is so innately special and so you that it doesn't, you know, an up and down music cycle.

You don't have to, you know, suffer through.

Yeah. I mean, our local small term example of that is the Nightfall Concert Series, which we have, which is a free concert every Friday, the spring, summer and into the early fall.

It has earned the respect of the local folks that it doesn't matter who the artist is, you know, it's going to be a good time.

You know what you're going to get, you know what your experience is going to be.

So that's, I mean, it's kind of the same thing that we're saying, but I think it's smart.

I mean, when we've when you and I started talking to these folks that go into these plazas, that was such an eye opener for me.

Yeah.

Like, you know, you and I both said it, we've never considered going out there other than the, you know, the novelty of seeing how bad it was.

And after we started talking, I was like, wow, I think I'd rather be out there in some some instances.

So it's a smart thing to do.

So I'm going through some of the things that, oh, yeah, by the way, by the time you're listening to this, the Shakin' Ease lineup will have come out.

And there's always some crossover between Shakin' Ease and Bonnaroo.

For me, I don't think that there's a music festival's lineup more identifiable to my musical taste than Shakin' Ease.

It's got its own issues, but for a small scale festival, it's really, really, really well done.

I had hoped to have had the lineup by now to at least talk about, but it's not going to work out.

I appreciate the C3 guys for even trying, but the Shakin' Ease lineup would probably be out by now.

So a lot of things that we're saying may not even be pertinent, but there's always plenty of crossover between one and the other.

I just wanted to go through some of these things that I noticed are part of the conversation,

especially when you come to the the headliners, the rumored headliners that came out, I guess, on M4RU the other day or wherever the hell it came out.

Tool, Taiman Pala, Lizzo. Couple things. Taiman Pala is the slam dunk sure thing of 2020.

There's just no reason for it not to happen. And I've heard I've been hearing Tool for the better part of three months.

It makes a lot of sense. It would be a show I'd be enormously excited to see because it's something that I've bypassed in the years past.

And then we get to Lizzo. So I'm not going to toot my own horn or pat myself on the back here,

but I think that I am in an unusual position to talk very specifically about Lizzo for a few reasons.

And I'm not going to get into what they are. But it seems 50-50 on whether or not people believe that she is a headliner.

It seems as though it's a point of contention that they don't understand what Lizzo is.

Even I've read so many comments about who's Lizzo. OK, fair enough.

Let me just try and paint a picture for you. When she came to Chattanooga, she did a free show for my radio stations

because I was lucky enough to be the first guy to ever play her on the radio because I found her and I just said the hell with it.

I was going to start playing her on the air and just did it without the record label really wanting me to.

She came and did something for us. She was very kind and gave us all that.

We'll play the interview when the festival gets closer and you can hear exactly what she was on the verge of becoming.

The Vizite guys was turning in her direction and I said to her then, you are a combination of Oprah and Beyoncé.

And her tour manager looked at me and she said, we are going to be doing arenas by the end of this tour.

So their plan in 2020 has always been she is going to be doing arenas.

This is before she even was sniffing the top 30. They knew it. They could just feel it turning.

So in 2020, they are going to do arenas and it will be an off album cycle.

So big time shows, big time venues, Bonnarooo is one of them.

And it fits perfectly into exactly what Bonnarooo is. Positivity, no body shaming.

And she would be the very first ever if she is in that top line, she will be the very first ever female headline that Bonnarooo has ever had.

You can argue whether or not that should be or should not be. But Lizzo is a major, major star.

And I know people do this Cardi B analogy a lot. I would argue that she's bigger than Cardi B and she's more mainstream than Cardi B.

Now, I know I'll get railed on that. But in my mind, Lizzo is they're basically banking on the Tame Impala album being great and Lizzo being even bigger than she is now.

And I'll throw one more little caveat in here. In about two months is the Grammy Awards.

She's going to be nominated for a slew of Grammys. Why not get her now when she's probably somewhere around $225,000 versus the three plus that Cardi B cost you.

Put her on the headlining slot, put her up top, maybe give her the witch stage late at night. Why not do that now?

And oh, by the way, save a few bucks and hope that you catch lightning in a bottle with a Grammy Award winning two number one singles and a third one on the way come this time, come June of 2020. Why not?

How much do you think and I have absolutely nothing to support this. How much do you think internally the folks that put these lineups together are thinking about that fact that they've not had a female headliner ever?

It's a great question. I don't you know, that's a great question. I'd love to ask them. I can't believe we haven't to be honest with you because because it is something that is that's that's a big deal.

It's a big deal now. And the fact that we haven't had one is pretty startling and surprising. And I know people are going to we should say by headliners for guys listening, we're talking about that top line.

Right. I mean, they've had plenty of people females playing the what stage but not on that top line. Right. And I you know, again, not to be an apologist or whatever. I think some of it you have to look year to year.

Do you just put a female on there just just for the sake of get off the Schneid or their years that you just you would have wanted to and there just wasn't. So I don't I don't know.

I know that putting together a lineup is not as easy as a lot of people want to think like you talked about, you know, a couple weeks ago on the show. You got to add up those numbers and the artists that you got 10 years ago is as Daniel pointed out is not getting the same money today that he was.

So there's a lot of factors. But I'm going to throw in one more thing about this Lizzo thing. First and foremost, the AC people when they put things on their lineup, they're going for quality. They're going for something that's good.

Right. They don't just I don't think that they necessarily just throw shit on a stage because it's popular and they can do something with it.

Dude, I have I've been to now seven Lizzo shows in a year. I can't explain to you how much fun they are. This is an enormous amount of fun and it just keeps getting better and better and bigger.

And every show that I've seen, I leave every one of them like that was even better than last time I saw it. And I'm sure that they've seen that she's come through Nashville three different times this past year.

There's no way they haven't seen that show. Yeah. And it's an interesting you know, you're talking about Booker now type of thing. And she she obviously is I think will be good in June.

But that is something they have to consider. You know, you've got somebody with a red hot single or maybe even two of them and you book them now.

She'll have three by June and she's not probably a good example. But this is what they try to avoid. They try to avoid booking that artist that has the hot act. But after, say, January, February, nobody wants to give them the time of day.

That's the last thing they want is to put somebody up with a tired. Well, one hit. Well, they did do that once. Macklemore. I was thinking the exact same thing.

They were hoping they were thinking that Macklemore album was going to do a lot better than it did. And that second time that Macklemore came around. Boy, what a stinker. What a stinker.

No, and it's exactly the example I was thinking. I mean, he crushed it the time before that three o'clock show on the what. Right. I mean, that's such an example to me.

First of all, I knew the novelty hit, but that's all I knew. I didn't know he had 90 minutes of solid material in that. And it was fun. It was so much fun.

And the crowd was huge. It blew me away. Yeah. And then he comes back the next time and it's meh. Yeah. I don't think it was not a good deal.

Is there anything else that I should have brought up about the Lizzo? I guess the in summation, I think Lizzo is a top three act.

I think that she is based on the show and how good it is, how much she means to the zeitgeist and the the the price and the cost that it is going to eventually actually cost you.

And my bet is it's somewhere two and a quarter not to get too often the weeds in it.

I think I think it works and I think it fits everything that that festival is. That's what she is.

I think it fits everything that that festival is becoming by just what we just talked about for the last 45 minutes.

And by the way, I'm going to just interrupt real quick.

There's only been one person I can remember that has made this big of a leap this quickly in the Bonnarooo world.

And that's Dua Lipa. And let me tell you, Lizzo is so much bigger than Dua Lipa.

So if Dua Lipa can do it, Lizzo can do it.

And this would this would makes me so excited about her actually playing the what or even an advanced and grown up which stage this will be the biggest show of her life.

And that excites me. Well, that's what I was.

You mentioned the which stage. That's what I was going to say is if maybe they're coming down off that idea of our headliners have to be the two and a half million dollar superstars and we spread it around a little bit more.

It makes a lot more sense. That's interesting. Yeah.

A couple of other things just of note, at least as of right now, the high women are out.

I don't know if that's a piece of news or not.

Again, I don't follow this as closely as as some.

I try to keep my pulse the finger on the pulse a little bit, but high women, from what I understand, are out.

Anything else that that I bring in back the Grand Ole Opry you imagine?

I mean, it didn't work for me. I know it didn't work for a lot of people.

Unless it was unless it's recalibrated.

And again, I would hope it was it would be recalibrated to something like Dan Auerbach and Friends doing, you know, him bringing some of his, you know, easy I sound guys up on stage and doing, you know, sort of curated thing is sort of like a country super jam.

Maybe. But as far as the Grand Ole Opry in it as a as a stage show, I don't want to be a jerk, but I don't necessarily want to see that again.

Yeah, I was glad to have seen it because I wanted to see those artists.

And it's going to be hard pressed in some ways to find, you know, more perfectly suited for Grand Ole Opry artist than what they had.

But does that mean they bring, you know, they recalibrated, as you say, and bring in some other folks to do more of a roundtable?

Yeah. The problem was it was done as the radio show that it is. And it just there was too much downtime.

It was. And here's here's the craziest part. I don't know where country goes for them this year.

I think they struck gold last year with Casey Musgraves and Maren Morris and Brandi Carlile and their crossover appeal that they had with their country.

I can't find a country artist that I think makes any sense for Bonnarooo this year unless they're willing to pay major dollars for like Zach Brown.

Well, you've got Sturgill Simpson's taking a weird career turn and is already going on tour and got a Bridgestone date.

He's taking Tyler Childress with him. Is Dan and Shay that damage?

That's not going to work. That was the least country song I've ever seen on a country show.

Yes. I happen to see that. I looked at my wife and say, this is what is. I mean, it was OK. I liked it, but it was not.

I can I can see a Kelsey Ballerini maybe working in a crossover way like that. I don't know.

I don't know where country goes in this festival. There's got to be a time in a conversation sometime in there that they say, you know, we really want to be something, but we can't force it.

Can we just punt every now and then? That's a great, great point. And that's that's a huge.

That's a huge part of the conversation for people who were out there imagining their own lineups to have with themselves.

Just because you want it, does it work? Yeah. And does it work this year for this amount of money and with everything else?

And that is that's the trick there. You know, Macklemore again made perfect sense.

It seemed like they had one other artist that year that they banked on quite a bit that didn't work out the home run.

They were thinking, you know, I don't know when we're going to do the next round of shows.

I don't know when we're going to be back in here doing some Bonnarooo talk, but probably between now and then.

Now we already know Shaky Knees. You've got Coachella coming.

You've got the Hangout lineup coming the first week of December. I know that for a fact.

You've got Coachella probably somewhere around there. You've got Bonnarooo on sale on Black Friday.

I know we're going to have some Bonnarooo tickets to give away here on the podcast.

There's going to be a lot going on between now and the end of the year.

So we'll try to pop in. But then, you know, we're looking once the turn of the year happens, it's lineup time.

You know, first, second week of January, you can fully expect a Bonnarooo lineup.

So, you know, if there's news between now and then, we'll definitely try and get in to sort it all out and talk about it.

But in the meantime, you know, if you want to hit us up at the What Underscore podcast on Twitter, at the What Underscore podcast on Instagram.

And by the way, can we say it again? I know we said it during the RooBus podcast, but we don't know how we would survive without Lord Taco.

Russ, we call him, if we affectionately know him as Lord Taco, the lord of tweeting and communicating online.

But Russ is his real name, at Russ with the bus. He's going to keep us on target.

I mean, he does everything social media wise. He does the website. He does.

He puts us on all of the platforms. If you didn't know, we're on Spotify now.

We're on all of your listening platforms, all of your stores.

And he's even developing a What Podcast app. You know, this guy is amazing.

Well, and he put us on YouTube. That last episode was on YouTube.

He edited the video for the What Podcast RooBus crossover, too.

I'm curious to know what you guys out there thought of that.

I know it's, you know, Brad will tell you he's a good looking guy, but he scares some people.

Me or Taco?

I wonder if anybody really wants to see it in that form.

Yeah, I mean, we're thinking, you know, for 2020 doing a few more live episodes.

We extended the offer to some partners who want to do some live shows.

So, you know, if we end up doing them, maybe you can join us.

If you're available, you can come to Chattanooga at Brad Stinks on Twitter, at the What Underscore Podcast on Twitter.

What's old Barry?

Barry J.C. on Twitter.

Barry Jesus Christ. That's right.

Nice. That's Barry and Brad. We'll talk to you next time.

Thanks, guys. Love you. Bye.