How Bonnaroo Gives Back: Live from Planet Roo 2026

One of the things that I take home with me every year since the first year is why can't it always be like this?

Why can't everybody be nice all the time?

This year we gave $100,000 to Poppy County K-12 mental health in schools.

And I know you're clapping for me, but you should be clapping for yourselves because that money came from you guys being here, you guys showing up, buying tickets.

Guys, this is going to be a short intro. We're going to run the panel discussion that we were so fortunate to do on Thursday at four o'clock.

Opening for Skrillex.

Opening for Skrillex. I was just overwhelmed.

Unbelievable the amount of people that came to see us.

Thank you everyone who came to see us. And as you can see, I'm decked out. I've got all this stuff on, buttons, pins.

I've got all kinds of stickers, trading cards, candy that you people gave us and we really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Part of what I'm doing today is going through that stuff and trying to reorganize it.

Biggest yell of the day, biggest applause for the day was for what?

Squeegee Guy.

That was so cool. That was a good solid 60 second standing ovation.

Standing ovation, I know. I was like, we're the ones on stage, what's going on here?

And then we ran into him out in camp during our tour, which we'll get into.

That was amazing. What did he tell us? He's on medical leave? He was on medical leave.

Everybody kept, because it was raining.

It rained.

People were reaching out and said, hey, we need you. And he said, I'm on medical leave. So very funny.

Yeah.

Literally, these are my notes. I'm not Bryan Stone. I never make notes.

And you've got notes.

But these are my notes.

The things, guys, in the next several weeks, months, whatever, I don't even know.

I don't know how this is going to fall out.

We have a wedding to talk about. We have so many thank yous. Thank yous to so many people.

No kidding. Let's do it right now.

No kidding.

Can you believe the number of people that stopped us, came up, tapped us on the shoulder?

No.

And just said, thank you. Thank you for what you guys do. Please keep doing it.

You keep us hyped throughout the year. You help tell us advice. I don't know what the word is.

Offer advice on how to do this crazy thing.

I ran into a guy coming out of the bathroom, which is always a great introduction.

I was going to say, several people stopped us when we were in the line, coming in or out of the bathroom.

And that's always, you know, it sounds like the beginning of a bad movie.

Yeah.

But he was from Minnesota. I'm terrible with names, so I'm not even going to try.

But he was like, thanks for the tips. I said, what's the best one?

He said, we all had travel pillows until we heard your episode. And then we got real pillows.

Real pillows.

You're welcome.

You are welcome. We'll get into that.

Yeah. I mean, the amount of people that just say thank you for doing the show, doing what you do, that's what keeps us going.

That's what inspires us, you know, especially when it's November.

And, you know, we're like, why the hell are we getting up early and doing a show about...

I hope we said that this week, didn't we?

This is why. I mean, you guys tune in every week and we really appreciate all the support and the love.

Keep doing it. Keep leaving us comments. Leave us voicemails. Send us emails.

Drop us a line anytime. Drop us a line on Discord if you're not a member.

You know, we love talking about this year round just like you do. So keep it going.

We have lots of thoughts on how we're going to do things differently in addition to whatever.

You'll notice on here, I have Make Fun of Brian starred two or three times. We'll get to that later.

The panel discussion was amazing. Out of that came an invitation to go to the Bonnarooo's dinner.

Yes, which was another thing I'd never done. This year was full of firsts for me.

I had lots of stuff that I had never done despite having done Bonnarooo now quite a few years.

I'm no longer the newbie, it seems.

Yeah. Turns out, Emily camped about 20 feet from us.

The whole time we didn't even know.

Wave goodbye tour.

Wave goodbye on Sunday as I was leaving.

But yeah, the Bonnarooo's dinner was incredible.

A couple years ago, I decided, I mean, just because we're looking for things to do

because we've done this for so long that it was going to be the Hug and Howdy tour.

That was going into it. This year, I'm pretty sure I'm going to call it the Media Whore Tour.

And I'm just going to be honest with you guys. We had the unbelievable, unbelievable opportunity

to do some amazing things this year. And that all had to do with media and not just us.

We were featured in a student at MTSU who also writes for the national scene,

wrote an article about podcast, talked to me and talked to Dolby, Jake over at the RooHamm

about podcasting for Bonnarooo, ended up the Tennessean end up picking it up.

That was just one thing. We found out that a film crew from Live Nation was going to follow us around

and do a little one of their fan, what are they? Fandomonium?

Fandomonium, the many documentaries, they want to kind of just showcase super fans of Bonnarooo.

I mean, I guess we count, right?

Yep. So we did that. They ended up following us to the wedding, which we'll get into much later.

That was the other. One of the original lead-ins to the show that I thought we would talk about

when we got back was how often I cried.

Yeah, I know.

I just not cried.

I did too. And I was like, that damn film crew had caught me crying again,

because I know they were looking at us.

I'm not embarrassed. That was an amazing wedding.

No, that was incredible.

Thank you to Yomi, that harpist. We'll talk about that.

There's so many things to talk about. Again, Make Fun of Brian.

Okay, we did that once. Got that again. I'm saving the big one for us.

I think the weather, I mean, have to talk about it.

We have to. I mean, it was on everybody's mind. And I'll be honest, Sunday, when that storm came,

I was getting flashbacks and I was thinking, well, this is it. They're just going to cancel the rest of the day.

I was preparing myself mentally for that. And I was kind of okay with it just because of how much awesome stuff we already got to do.

But the fact is, it was nothing like last year. You know, the storm moved out, just like they said.

The grounds dried up amazingly well, I think. I mean, it was still mud, but you know, it's mud.

And we were able to have an amazing finish, an amazing Sunday night to an amazing festival.

That's where I... On Monday morning, I think I started reading some of our Discord posts and read it.

And I was really glad to see so many people that we know and don't know saying things like,

I'm so happy for Cory and Shelby and the crew.

Cory Smith is the marketing director for Bonnaroo, if you don't know.

Shelby is the brand new director.

And just to hear people call them out by name and say how happy they were for them.

The fact that people know who they are at all.

I think that's so key.

And shout them out, yeah, because they deserve credit for a successful year, I think.

And we said it, and I promise you were not the only ones who said it,

but that fireworks display on Sunday night was orgasmic.

And I don't mean that in the pornographic.

It gave me chills. It was such a release, such a happy moment, such a...

We made it so happy. And to hear people the next day say for them personally,

I really thought was very cool.

I know that sounds like we're shilling for them, but whatever.

That's the way I felt. Those guys worked their rear ends off.

We ran into them throughout the weekend. It was amazing.

One of the things that we'll get into throughout the year,

and I don't know quite how, is you and I had the...

I think at one point you said most people are here and they're excited to see whoever the headliners are.

You and I were so excited because we got to hang out with Dale.

The guy who cuts the grass.

And you're going to think we're kidding, but we got the what?

It's not the 10 cent tour. That's what my dad used to say.

We got the $100 tour.

You and I have both seen all kinds of stuff backstage at this festival.

He showed us stuff that we'd never seen before.

He told you on Wednesday and he told me on Friday he loves this place like a baby.

He really does. You can tell he was so proud to show us everything.

All the improvements that he's made, all the things that he likes. This is what he does.

For you guys who were just there for the day or new to it,

and you wore your fits that you'd been planning for 11 months and however many days,

and then all of a sudden you're standing in mud.

Watching a show is incredible.

It's in large part because of Dale.

We always said prepare for rain, prepare for mud, bring your boots, bring waterproof gear.

It's an outdoor festival in June. It's going to happen, but it didn't get canceled.

It wasn't catastrophic like last year.

We're privileged to do a lot of things that most people don't, but you and I were backstage

listening to Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi being interviewed by Rolling Stone Magazine

for a podcast when we got the word, gotta go?

You don't gotta go home, but you can't stay here.

Literally they pushed us out into the rain and we had umbrellas. It was pouring.

What time was it? 2 o'clock?

It was perfect weather when we went in there.

I remember hearing the rain start outside and thinking,

we're in the media area, it's covered, we can wait out the rain here.

Five minutes later they break everything and say there's lightning, you have to evacuate.

In 1936 we were back in Centauroux and we were watching music.

We had an awesome time.

I thought the ground looked great compared to what we just went through.

That's my point. Good for Dale and we're going to get into that a lot more as the weeks come.

To that point, we're going to share with you the panel discussion that we did on Thursday.

Brian, as we said, is with Beth, who is also part of the Media Horror Tour.

If you haven't gone to Nashville.com.

Talk about, she did a great job.

She shot 20 something, 27 shows maybe?

She shot 16 on Friday. She was making us look bad with how much work she was doing.

Then she wrote a wonderful story.

She got incredible photos, which we'll share. Go to Nashville.com, read her recap.

Very good stuff.

If you haven't seen it already, the David Bruce short, The Real, that Live Nation did.

We don't know when ours will follow. I have a feeling there might be a lot longer when coming.

What they did was amazing.

It's the same crew. They followed David around. They followed us around.

Some of the stuff they got of us was the same. There's a lot of mingling.

They put out a little short teaser of him talking about Bonnarooo that I thought was really well done.

Extremely well done.

I don't know. What are we going to do?

We also have the radio show that Brian put together that ran on Rooster Radio that's really good.

I finally got to hear it Monday. I didn't get to hear it over the weekend because I just never tuned in when it was on.

David and I tuned in a little bit Wednesday night, Thursday even.

It sounded great. He did a good job.

He pulled some of our past shows from Noah Kahan, Roof is the Soul,

some great stuff from Tuba Smith, Tim Smith, who is the director of all festivals.

Some stuff from Ken.

Ken Weinstein, the origin stories of Bonnarooo. So pretty really good stuff.

Well done. He did a great job. Again, the Media Whore Tour, 2026.

That's us.

We could do a whole show just on the wedding.

The way that all came together just last minute and just incredible.

Seriously, there are so many things and that's why I wrote them down.

What am I missing to do?

Some of you didn't have the best time. You probably came and you're mad.

Your bits got muddy.

That's Bonnarooo. That's the bonding process.

I had the best time.

I can't think of what the other best one was. I mean I still Paul McCartney for me.

That's my lifelong thing.

It was the best for me and I'll probably get some pushback on this. I saw less music this year than I ever saw.

I maybe saw four shows.

I saw more this year than I have in about four or five years.

I usually do get out and see a lot of shows and this year with this Media Whore Tour, we were just so busy.

Yeah, yeah. Wetleg to me was 100%. That's what I wanted to see and it exceeded.

Yeah, we hadn't even talked to music.

Rainbow kitten surprise I thought was fantastic.

Youngblood was terrific.

Kesha was the one. The big surprise for me was how I knew it would be good, but just how much energy, how big the crowd was, how good she was.

Skrillex was disappointing for me.

Grizz was awesome. LSZ I thought was amazing.

So yeah, we have so much yet to talk about and lots and lots of guests.

We've lined up so many people, but I think let's end this and you correct me if I'm wrong,

but to all of you people that came up and just tapped us on the shoulder and said thank you and told us that you were awesome.

I can't tell you how much that touched me and meant to me and inspired me and makes me want to get back up and keep doing this every week.

Completely. Yeah, I mean we always, you know, you get home after June, you think, oh, okay, all that's over.

You look forward to a little break.

This time, you know, I feel a little more inspired to keep going.

Yeah, so it's hard to keep going.

It's hard to put into words what it means when people come up and just say thank you for, you know, listening and or thank you for doing what you do.

And we thank you for listening.

Yeah, it wasn't just one or two is amazing.

Awesome. So all right, here's the panel discussion. And again, we'll be back.

Brian will be back next week. He's fired up. He's ready to go, believe it or not.

Of course, we don't have any clue where he is.

He and Beth went off somewhere and, you know, well deserved. They both worked really hard too this week.

Yeah, she worked her.

All right, so here we go, guys. See you next week.

Thank you guys for coming. I'm Barry. That's Russ. That's Brian.

We are.

We've been doing this podcast since 2018.

I've been said before, if you watch the show at all, you know, Brian's been to every Bonnarooo since the beginning.

I've been to all of it. Bye. Bye.

Russ has been since 2018. That's right. I'm the baby.

I've been teasing him all weekend.

He's going to sing a song at the end. And if you know why that's funny, you know why that's funny.

We are going to talk about this fabulous tent, planet room and all the stuff that goes on here during the week.

Bonnarooo, we have we've spent the last couple of days being asked what makes Bonnarooo special to us.

I don't know. Do you guys want to try to recap those answers or?

Yeah, why don't you recap that?

This you guys know where you wouldn't be here. I don't know anything that creates a community like Bonnarooo.

Yeah, I mean, it's been a lifelong journey here for me. Bonnarooo math is hard.

If you try to count how many they are, I see people nodding their heads. It's like, wait a second, right?

That year. Wait, hold on. 21 September. Wait.

But the math isn't hard from 22 to 46.

I'm 46 now. I was 22 when I first came to this farm just to see what all the fuss was about.

And over the course of those two and a half almost decades, a lot's changed. I would hope so. Right.

And that much time. And I've found a lot of things that I would have never thought to be entertaining, enlightening, informative.

Informative, sure. But I can get information anywhere. Enlightening might be the best word to use.

And these days, yeah, Skrillex is tonight. That's great. That's going to be awesome. Right? It's going to be great.

Youngblood. This is a Youngblood concert for me this weekend. Start to finish. Youngblood. I absolutely can't wait.

But I don't really care if he plays or not. The installations from the campgrounds to the plazas to this incredible tent.

I mean, and all the different nonprofits we'll be focusing on some day. I find some of that to be, I mean, I'm not just saying this because this is what we're doing.

I enjoy this as much as anything else. Come by here any time over the weekend. Get some shade and some good conversation with just about anybody you can run into.

But certainly any of the vendors, probably some free stuff. I'm not trying to give away other people's stuff, but I have a feeling that that's part of this too.

So I am honored to be up here today to help showcase some of these great vendors in this spy. But it's not just here. It's all throughout the festival.

And then, yeah, since Youngblood is playing, I'll go see it. Right?

One of the things that I take home with me every year since the first year is why can't it always be like this? Why can't everybody be nice all the time?

And that's true. But what these people do inside of here, and we're going to talk about it in the next hour or so, is even more so because you can take this home with you.

The sustainability, the radiating positivity, the just being nice to other people. You're going to feel that in the next few days. And it's pretty awesome.

Awesome. And before we get too far, I do want to reference last year. If time could stand still on that Thursday last year, I mean, it was as good a time as you could possibly imagine having.

I almost feel guilty because of how much fun us three had on that day. And then we all know what happened from there.

It would have been really easy to say, all right, you know, enough of this. Right? Enough of this. I've, you know, so many different reasons and walks of life could say, I'm done with that. I'm done with that.

You all can't see it. You all didn't do that. You came back. And thank you for that. Thank you for that. Because I mean, it's all about us. It's about the fans. It's about the people who support this.

And without without these incredible people, everybody here, everybody walking out of it where you see this thing doesn't exist. And thank you for coming back.

I'm going to I'm going to call somebody out. And I'm not I don't want to embarrass you, but I just noticed the t-shirt that says, I can't wait to be ashamed of what I do this weekend.

That's really funny. And I get it. And I've been there. But I want to challenge everybody. Let's can't wait to be proud of what we do this weekend.

What about the shirt that says, Hail Lord Taco? Oh, yeah. And that's how I missed that one.

Never not great.

Never not great.

Yeah.

This is awesome.

All right. I always like to ask, how many of you this is your first time at Bonnarooo?

All right. That's a lot of you. That's a lot. So thank you guys for coming to hear us and our silly stuff.

I guess a little bit. The What Podcast, we do it every week because we love this event. We talk about it all the time, as do a lot of people want to point out that we're the first of three panels because there are other podcasts.

The Real Rebus, Daniel and Charlotte are here.

They are tomorrow, right?

Same time tomorrow.

Same time tomorrow, right here. And then the RooHamm guys will be on to talk about Daniel. I don't know what your topic to totem, everything that totem does.

Totem and we have a surprise band at the end.

A surprise band.

The RooHamm guys.

Oh my God.

Yeah, it's Tame Impala.

The only podcast that talks.

I ain't got that kind of money.

Dapp Punk will be right afterwards.

The RooHamm guys are talking about mental health. So, you know, a little bit more serious, but this is the place to be doing it.

All right. What else do we need to talk about?

Kelsey is going to come on and we're going to talk about what goes on in this tent.

And we're going to have some members that are have some of the tent, the vendors, the nonprofits that are here to talk about what they do.

It's almost like we just mentioned her name.

That's how good.

My ears were burning.

Before you leave, we have some giveaways that I've mentioned.

Oh, yeah.

I've been handing out little wooden tokens. I left them over there on the table. They're in a tray.

Yeah, get you a token.

See them there? Go get one.

Get you a token. We have stuff to get. I don't even know why. I just show up.

All right. These guys do all the stuff that you see.

Sometimes you don't even do that.

Yeah, sometimes if I do, it's 20 minutes late.

So, yeah, grabbing some of those coins.

We got some giveaways that Lord Taco arranged through lunchbox and others.

And our friend, David Boose, got a grant that will be given away as well.

So and somehow those tokens are the key to your future.

So be sure and get yourself a token.

Hi, Kelsey. Welcome.

Thank you. Sorry I came before I was properly introduced.

Well, I thought it was timed perfectly.

You did better than Brad Parker, who left in the middle of the damn show last year.

You know, if you know, you're not.

The festival director gets called. It's a lot different when the director of sustainability is...

You mean festival? I mean Brad Parker.

All right. So Kelsey, found it like a large percentage of the crowd that this is their first time.

So they don't know what happens inside Planet Roo.

Yeah. First off, welcome to Planet Roo, y'all.

We're really, really, really glad that you're here.

And we're really, really glad that we have great partners and people like The What and The Roo of Us and The Roo Ham Podcasts that are excited to be here this weekend.

We're grateful to get to be a platform for a lot of really important organizations.

Planet Roo has been around since long before I was involved, but essentially started by the festival founders really recognizing that

we have an obligation to be an important part of the community and we really want to engage not only in Manchester, but within the region.

So started with just a few organizations having booths like you see here.

And then now it's kind of on steroids and I'm here for it.

So, so yeah, so under this tent, we've got our nonprofit village.

We've got the house stage. So it used to be the solar stage.

It's still solar powered, but we decided we wanted it to meet and align with the rest of the fest.

But instead of being just really confusing like this, that, and the other, we really want to ask the question, how can I get involved?

How can I make an impact? How can I live a healthier and sustainable life?

So that's why we did the rebrand while still having the solar.

And then Planet Roo also involves the Academy over here or the Hobbit Hut, as we affectionately call it.

It's a hay bale hut made out of tires, muds, stucco and trees.

And we do a lot of really cool hands on workshops over there.

But really the soul to me of Planet Roo is the nonprofit village where we have some incredible nonprofits.

And we'll get into a little more of that.

But that's kind of the core piece of what Planet Roo is about is nonprofits providing great opportunities to engage and trying to inspire bonderivians to be better than they were when they came.

It might be a little bit out of order, I think.

But can you, because one of the questions we've had for you before is how do you choose who's here?

Yeah, totally valid. And it does have, it has evolved over the years.

The organizations that we typically supported have kind of aligned in the arts, education, sustainability, social impact, civic duty.

And we're trying to help answer that question by giving you the people in the community doing just that.

But essentially it's an application process.

We want to make sure that A, you're legit, and B, that you're willing to show up and work hard, because this ain't easy.

These guys are working really hard for the next few days.

They're not getting paid. They're volunteers.

They're here to engage with you guys and really have a fun experience with you.

So it's an invite application and then again a review process from us, because we want to make sure you have the stones to do Bonnaroo.

Again, I'm going to go off script because I just want to point out that Squeegee guy just walked in there.

Where's Austin? Where is he?

Stand up, Austin.

The biggest star, the biggest star of Bonnaroo Lure of the last 365 days.

He is the Squeegee King.

He's the hero that saved us all.

Not all heroes are Chad Kroger songs.

This guy.

Squeegee, Squeegee.

And his mom's here too.

Oh yeah, is your mom here?

She's out partying.

Almost here.

I love that.

That's so funny.

The little tiny pike, what are they?

I can't even think of them.

Grouse?

No, little pylons.

Sorry.

Gones.

Gones.

That's so funny.

Anyway, if you don't know, look up Squeegee.

All right, I'm sorry I interrupted.

The other thing about the people that are here that I think is so important and relevant is not only do they fit the Bonnaroo ethos, but it's a year round.

It's like I said a few minutes ago, you really can leave here and take this stuff with you.

Yeah, exactly.

We know that the Bonnaroo positive hangover can really last a long time and it can really change lives.

And so again, we want to make sure when we do that application, it's them telling their mission and explaining why they align with Bonnaroo and why the spirit of the organization is so perfect to be here.

We don't want it to be kind of a blind corporate nonprofit that doesn't have a willingness to really embrace the Bonnaroovian spirit.

So they're handpicked and they are built to be here because you guys helped create this personality and this culture.

I know because I written about it for the Chattanooga paper for my previous job.

Money that's raised from these types of things have fed the homeless in Coffee County and nearby counties.

Yeah, so I'm sorry, say that beginning of that question one more time.

Well, what I was just going to say that some of the money in the past has gone to like the high schools or band uniforms and equipment.

It's gone to feed homeless in Coffee County and surrounding.

Yeah, so our grant making process has definitely served a lot of different organizations within the community.

Again, we do try and stick to the pillars of arts, education, sustainability, social impact just because that's the culture of Bonnaroo.

But it is everything from this year.

This year we gave one hundred thousand dollars to Coffee County K through 12 mental health in schools.

And I know you're clapping for me, but you should be clapping for yourselves because that money came from you guys being here and you guys showing up buying tickets.

It's back of house stuff. It's different fundraisers that we do.

So that is one one program that we funded.

And then it's also smaller grants that went to everything from the Coffee County Library or the Historical Society.

Really investing in local here within Coffee County because they mean so much to what what we can do here in Bonnaroo and here in their backyard.

So we want to respect that and continue to go that.

All right. Are you ready to highlight the first one?

Yeah. Yeah. So we've got a couple of different people that I think would be helpful for.

I know I love them for my reasons, but I like having these guys coming with fresh questions because we do have such a wide range of the type of impact that we have.

You know, we're going to have some people talking about our Bonneau Reach dinners, which one of our fundraisers, we have our food recovery program.

So I would love to hear just, you know, get get.

Let's start with David Conover from Brenney County Food Bank.

And we'll get to chat with you.

Come on down.

Right. Yeah. Sorry, Brian. We need to use that.

Taking up two seats over.

I don't know what I'm doing.

So, David, I just don't marry.

Yes, sir.

Pull that up to you.

So different I've worked together on the food recovery side.

So Post Fest vendors catering.

We make sure that that stuff is not being wasted.

We want to make sure it goes to the proper.

I think David is better at describing it because he helped build the program that we now implement still to this day.

Hello, everyone. My name is David Conover.

A little history about the food sustainability program that we do.

2011, a lady named Ashley Hillis reached out to my stepdad, who was the director of the Grundy County Food Bank up in Tracy City up on Monagle Mountain.

We need to do a documentary, which you all can look up sustainability.

Bonnarooo, the original one reached out as far as a project to do a documentary about food that went wasted at festivals.

And she connected up with the main artist catering person came down and a day or two collected three or four thousand pounds of food.

Since then, being my wife, we helped the next year and my dad retired.

But we took over the project.

2012 from now from now, the end of now, we kind of connected the caterers, vendors, Cisco, U.S. foods.

We come in, we promote the whole deal for the whole entire week.

We average twenty five thousand pounds of food a year collecting for the Grundy County Food Bank, which everybody, you know, the caterers, vendors, everybody,

everybody, pitch in and give them the food.

And it's like one of the undernourished counties in the state of Tennessee.

And each year they are very, very appreciative of the year, you know, Bonnarooo is coming and they get the food and they drink death water like, look, I got a death water, you know,

and like this, you know, and it goes a long, long way and the community comes together and feed 300 families.

They help with the high school with perch, pantries, some of the state organizations that help the youth.

And so it goes a long, long way.

And like I said, Bonnarooo has been very, very appreciative for them to kind of sponsor us and be the help us be the middleman to collect the food and help help the community.

This might be a question for a sorry to me to cut off the applause that you deserve.

This might be a question for a longer form platform, but I always hear from people who are running, working in restaurants or in catering.

And I think you started to say that at the beginning as far as out relates to Bonnarooo.

But talk about the legalities of just giving food away.

Right. It's not as simple necessarily as like the bakery that might have a bunch of extra bread at the end of the night can't necessarily just take it anywhere and give it anywhere.

Is that accurate? And and is so what kind of challenges is the food bank here in Grandi County have around those legalities possibly?

So I'm not a lawyer, but I'll kind of go over what I feel.

So we, I guess, we're going to kind of food bank. I said there's many families.

We have a brand new 26 foot reef truck that they got this year, which is great because the other one was about 70 years old.

Not really. But anyway, we look at the food. We sign a waiver, I guess, with, you know, Bonnarooo and Live Nation.

And, you know, I'm not held responsible if something happened.

But people do the organizations do have to be concerned about potential health inspection kind of thing.

So we tell the traders and vendors that if it's hot food, which we do collect, that these be wrapped and kept in proper storage conditions.

You know, if we see food that can be hauled back to the mountain, you know, as far as stuff is going to go to waste, we tell we can't take that product.

And then when it gets up to the food bank, they have a team of 10, 15, 20 people that goes through the stuff and they can they can test to see if it's good to go.

Well, this is a long conversation for another day.

But if it's spicy pie that's been sitting out overnight, we're not we're not putting that on the reefer truck.

Yeah, well, I might eat it. Yeah, we'll save it for you.

What kind of support do you get from Bonnarooo?

And what I'm thinking is, I mean, you get the stuff next week or whatever.

Do you see long term residuals to people because they've left here and they feel good about it that they help you guys out or is it more of a?

I said, they'll see in their crew, the sustainability crew really help us each year.

We coordinate different avenues of us to be able to pick up the food and be very streamlined about getting the stuff on Sunday night or Monday when the vendors are all leaving.

You know, we had the same catering, the artist catering guy that was here for like 10, 11 years who worked with every time.

We've gone. There have been a couple of different ones the last three or four years, but they're always there for us.

They always remember us. There are certain catering people that when we see them, they recognize us.

They give us hugs and they're so glad we're so glad to see you.

And we're so glad that you do this for community.

We got a lot of festivals and food just goes to waste.

And when nobody to give it to, I'm glad that you can be to do this for any for us.

We feel bad giving them food that could help somebody out.

Well, we're really, really happy to hear about the work you do.

My girlfriend in Washington state works for a food bank.

I know many people in Chattanooga do as well. It's hard work.

It's really it's it's very hard work.

So thank you for what you do. Thank you, everybody.

Anything else? No, I mean, again, we're grateful for David.

Our program's grown over the years because we keep increasing the amount of money that we give because they make it so easy on us.

So we're always big fans of efficiency. So anything we can do to make sure that it's smooth running.

But yeah, thank you, David.

Next up, I would love to have Emily from E for Equity.

Hopefully you guys have at some point enjoyed or at least witnessed one of our amazing farm to table dinners called the Banneris Dinners out here in front of the Academy.

I can't take credit for creating it, but Emily can give a little bit of an origin.

Did you guys get to come last year? I know I invited you, but I don't know if before cancellation.

No, the festival got ruined.

Yeah, well, this year we got to make that happen. And I'm starving, by the way.

This year we got to make that happen. I can't wait to talk food.

We got some seats with your names on it. Exactly.

Look at that.

Yeah, the dinners started in 2013 as a bit of an experiment.

We set up some dinners in the campground on Main and invited people to come give what they can.

It was, you know, five bucks, ten bucks. We accepted stickers as a form of payment and good vibes.

And people got to sit down and share a meal together and all of the proceeds went to support a nonprofit, Oxfam America,

which is still our partners on these dinners. And then Bonnaroo caught wind of it and was like,

let's make this a real thing. Let's invite you into Centaru and let's partner and make it so much bigger and more impactful.

And so volunteers come and prepare food. It's all locally sourced.

We got greens that were harvested this morning outside of Manchester that are going to be stretched end to end in the world's longest salad.

So imagine tables stretching underneath that pergola there and you're sitting down with 200 of your new best friends.

You're actually sitting down for a meal at Bonnaroo and you know, you're passing the pimento and the cornbread and the Ben's Ham

and you're tucking into a salad that stretches along the length of the table. It's an abundant. It's local.

It's impactful because Bonnaroo impacts all the costs of the food so that 100 percent of the proceeds can support Oxfam and Eat for Equity.

The longest salad in the world, you said? We have Guinness Book on this.

Is anyone from Guinness here today? World records in the house. I got to know this. And I have to have some of that too, by the way.

Well, it's 25 tables stretched end to end and the salad goes the whole length of the table.

Sounds like the world's longest one. Yeah, I've never seen one longer.

Prove us wrong. Emily, this sounds a lot like many communities that do the thankful thing for Thanksgiving.

A lot of downtown communities, maybe not downtown, but it will do that community Thanksgiving meal.

Kind of sounds like the same kind of concept to bring people together. Instead of it being a national holiday, it's Bonnaroo.

Yeah, I mean, food is such a natural way to bring people together. Where do we all gather at a party? We're in the kitchen.

And I think it's a beautiful thing, however you do it. There's lots of examples that we highlight too in this campaign called Food Fight.

Food is a tool to make change in your communities and bring people together. Whether you do it for Thanksgiving table and invite your whole town or you sit down at a table and you invite all of Bonnaroo.

And normally the tickets sell out far in advance. We have a small number of tickets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

So if you want to be part of Friday, it might be gone. But the world's longest salad. You can come see us at Eat for Equity. Our booth is right over there.

We'd love to have you be part of it. You guys too. Yeah. Yeah. We got to have you. I'm sure you said, but say again, it's when and people still think come sign up.

Yeah. So we're doing dinners. The world's longest salad Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night at six o'clock. We'll start welcoming people at 545 and you'll see it taking place and unfolding right over there.

Just steps away from the house stage. Awesome. Cool. And we'll see you there. We'll see me there. Yeah. Awesome. Anything else?

No, I mean, yeah, like that's to me, to me, just in terms of what makes it unique. Like obviously the farm table and the vibes are so perfect.

It's golden hour. You're sitting with people you've never met before and you're enjoying a good mood, good food. I don't know what could be more Bonnaroo than that.

So really highly recommend enjoying the dinner, but also you're doing it while supporting a good cause. So and you never really know.

Sorry, you never really know who's going to be at your table or who will have helped chop your vegetables. We have artists come in and chop Lizzo, Angelique Jo, River Wireless, fans of the past, LVJoby.

Yeah, so many, so many amazing artists have come and chopped cucumbers and peppers for a cause. And there's no dress code. It's not no shirts, no service. It's wear whatever you like.

You don't even require pants. You might get lucky and sit next to us. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Emma.

Awesome. And this next guest, Brian's already a fan because he's representing on his shirt. So give it up. I'm going to welcome Anna Sampson from We Are Neutral.

And this is another one similar to Emily where I can't take credit for some of these amazing things that have been at Bonnaroo. Hey, we're twins.

I did not plan this last night. I didn't pay him to wear it. No. But yeah, I can't take credit for building it. I'm just grateful that I get to continue to work with such incredible people and on such incredible programs.

But Anna's going to give you a little bit of overview of how the Targanton Offsetting Program with Bonnaroo started. And then I can kind of continue with how it is today.

Yeah, so I'm so grateful to be here. Happy Roo, everybody. This is my tenth. My tenth Roo. We've been working with Bonnaroo since 2011.

And what we do is we basically are environmental mathematicians. So we calculate the carbon footprint of everybody's travel coming to and from the farm.

And then we do really good local things to balance it out. So we have done energy upgrades for every single low income family in Manchester, Coffee County and the neighboring seven counties.

Saving low income families over three million dollars in utility bills. So really, I believe in the concept of balance.

And you can only improve what you can measure. So we calculate molecules and figure out what the pollution is associated to the festival and then balance it out locally.

We've been doing that since 2011. They can not only do it, but they love doing it. We had one random inquiry about RV stuff.

And I was like, you know what? I think Anna could help here. I was like, all right, Anna, three people in an RV, or I'm sorry, like eight people in an RV versus two cars of four people.

How does that help? And, you know, and she was like, ooh, let me go to work. I was told there'd be no math.

I'll do the math. Okay. But I can't write at all.

Well, it sounds like you have a very different approach that I'm used to seeing about sustainability.

All I know is, is I like a shirt that causes tension to myself. And I'm a big fan of the environment.

So I stopped by not knowing anything said, unfuck the environment. I have got to have that shirt and the sticker and the pin.

So I learned a little bit about you guys last year and very happy to have you here today. But so what's the shirt? Great gear.

If somebody goes by your booth, what are they going to find besides a t-shirt?

Oh, at our booth? Yeah. So on average, we've done the math again.

And on average, it's about a five dollar donation to offset the carbon footprint of your travel to and from the festival.

And that five dollar donation goes towards our all of our environmental programs.

And then that five dollar donation also enters you into a raffle to win a paratigus for next year.

And you can also get one of these shirts. Cool. Yeah.

The globe is something that I think is just on the other side by the stage arch.

You can see the big globe out there. And I think it's always just so so impactful to get to see on a map where everybody's traveling from Bonnarooo.

And then by where they put the pins, these guys can tell you. All right.

Here's here's what your travel looks like.

It's much and we're offsetting your travel. And it's just that easy.

The thing I'll say is there's lots of time here on the farm.

There's music later in the evening, but there's lots of time.

So, you know, if nothing else, come inside a cool tent, walk around, check out these nonprofits.

Yeah, no, I mean, that's that's exactly what we're trying to accomplish.

And, you know, with things like the Bonnarooo's dinners and Eat for Equity, like you have some amazing nonprofits out here that all do incredible things.

We would love to work with them more intimately.

We would love to build programs like we built with Anna and Eat for Equity.

We're super open to that because, again, the spirit of Bonnarooo is about personality, collaboration and relationships.

So you want to look at how we can dive deeper and how we can truly work as partners on something instead of just letting you set up a booth once a year and then calling it a day.

And actually, she was you might have just participated in a little service project party with Shower the People.

But another example of growing programs is Shower the People started in a booth and then became part of our material recovery partners.

And now they're also working the showers out in the campgrounds.

We're hiring them to then generate donations.

So the synergy of that is really important to us.

And I also love it because I have reasons to talk to Anna year round instead of just while we're on the farm.

And we just like to brainstorm.

You know, we're looking at because it's a good thing, a good problem to have.

But we've essentially run out of low income housing to do some of our retrofits.

And so now we're looking at do we want to do nonprofits?

Do we want to do schools?

Do we want to do Manchester businesses?

So we're back to the drawing board in a good way to kind of come up with new creative ways to utilize the greening fees that you guys are contributing through your regular ticket sales, but also through things like our V passes.

Your money is going to these green causes and these opportunities for us to work with great nonprofits.

So we thank you for that.

While we're while we're line changing, while we're pointing out Bonnarooo legends, Caleb, the yearbook guy is right there.

So if you haven't signed the Bonnarooo yearbook, well, what the hell's the matter with you?

He's right there.

Go sign it.

Bye.

I'll be there.

I got I got I got my pin with me and everything.

I'll be right there.

But yes, yes.

So I actually have a question for you guys.

I think when this kind of came up, you know, we'd have our conversations obviously in trying to plan cool programming for last year.

And then selfishly, I did pitch this as I think it is something that is under under known, unknown, lesser known.

There we go. Words are hard.

It's lesser known on the impact side.

And we know that we know that planet really isn't why people buy tickets, but we're just grateful that we get to be here and get to do what we do on this impact side.

But how much would you guys say you knew about either planet Rue or sustainability or the impact programming that Bonnarooo had before we got introduced?

You're asking us personally?

Yeah, that's a cheat for me because I had to write about Bonnarooo every year since 2002.

So I was always looking for I didn't know any of it.

I like tacos.

Honesty.

Thank you.

Well, I for the first 20 years I came here, drank myself to oblivion every day.

So I didn't know what the hell it was other than that awesome hand that held up the big world.

Yeah, I had it on my notes to ask you that thing.

What happened to that family if you're coming from the woods?

So it's in the woods.

I'm saying that hand looks real good at three in the air.

Yes.

It could be quite terrifying.

But I just remember seeing that big hand with the world that boy, that's cool.

Now, where can I get a drink?

I moved on from that life a little bit.

And so more recently, I have become aware of, as I mentioned from the kind of the preamble at the beginning, that it's not even about music for me at this festival anymore.

It's after this many years, I've seen it all.

Like, I mean, unless, you know, Rolling Stones show up, there's not much I haven't seen.

And so I become more familiar in the last couple of years.

And in the last year and a half, certainly thanks to you, Kelsey, for the education of it all.

For those who don't know, the putt was a post office at one time.

You could actually mail a letter from here with with a post from Manchester.

You can still write letters.

We actually have a memorial here for one of the founders of Bonnaroo.

Write a letter to Jonathan.

He passed away shortly before Bonnaroo last year.

And we still want to keep his memory alive.

He's meant a lot to lots of this festival.

And yeah, letter writing is still very much involved in this area.

Let me ask you, Kelsey, before you became so entrenched with with Planet Rio as you have for, what did you say, around 10?

I was hired to run the nonprofit in 2018.

So was this was is this life, work, passion of yours leading up to that?

So I went to school for music business and thought I was going to be behind the scenes on the creative side.

Still love that.

I still love that.

Lived in L.A. for about seven years.

But I recognize that I wanted music to matter more.

So I kind of started creating my own nonprofit, wanted something again to utilize my passion for music into something that could make a difference and make something positive.

And literally in a drunken stupor one night, I was describing this to a friend, Emily Cox, that used to work for Bonnaroo.

And and then a week later, the job description came up for the executive director position.

So I call it Kismet.

Like it truly was.

If I could describe a role for me of getting to work with nonprofits, you know, have the spirit of Bonnaroo as like literally what I have to do year round and think about year round to get to live in that positivity, to get to live entrenched in a ethos that really, again, can't be more positive, but also allows.

Allows me to just get to play, play creative thinking with organizations that are doing far more important work than I am.

So I think of myself as a catalyst for the work that they're doing.

I think of Bonnaroo as a platform to get to kind of enhance what those people are doing.

But I do think that it was a little bit of Kismet that, again, my passion for music and wanting it to matter more could not have ended up in a more perfect place than Bonnaroo.

Because that has been the spirit of what this festival has been about.

Cool.

All right.

We've got prizes to give away.

Anything else before we do that?

I was hoping to get Well Done Foundation.

I think they might have just gotten stuck.

They're also doing stuff with Bonnaroo U.

But if you're not familiar with Well Done Foundation, I highly recommend you check them out.

If you're interested in music industry internships or our externship program, they help run that.

And I think that's what they got stuck with.

But check out Well Done Foundation.

Have a great history.

Oh, wait.

Okay.

They're coming.

Yeah, I don't want them to not have an opportunity because they have a long history.

They used to have their board meetings here at Bonnaroo because their entire board was basically.

While they're walking up, let's do this real quick.

See people.

If you look on the back of your wooden nickel, the first two people that have a little pen tick mark, come on up and claim your hydration packs.

A little tick mark?

What the hell is that?

Little pen.

Just a little mark.

Little mark.

Or here's a pen and you can write on your own and you're an automatic winner.

Okay, come around.

Sorry for the maze.

Go around that side.

There's our winner.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our winner is escorting our next guest.

I like guests.

Yeah.

No, you're fine.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So this is Nancy Tari, Director of Well Done Foundation and World Done.

I'm just going to let them give their legacy, history and catch you up on the Well Done Foundation.

Hi there.

Sorry we're late.

No, thank you for coming.

For coming.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

For coming.

Tell us about what you guys do.

Okay.

We began our foundation 14 years ago.

And we began our foundation in memory of my daughter, Emily Dunn, who was passionate about

Bonnarooo specifically.

I brought her to her first adventure at Bonnarooo in 2005 when she was a junior in high school.

Another mom and I rented an RV and brought some girls up.

Coolest mom I've ever.

Younger mother than I can know.

And she got bitten by the Bonnarooo bug.

She worked every holiday summer in a festival somewhere.

She worked at Bonnarooo for years.

Graduated from college, had a great opportunity to work with Superfly Presents in San Francisco.

Met with a very unfortunate accident.

And in her memory, many of the people with whom she had worked for years approached us,

Rick Farman specifically, principal owner of Superfly, said,

How do we get more Emilys?

And they actually came up with the idea of an internship program, which we began in 2012.

We have been at Bonnarooo since 2012 with our internship program, which now we have an

externship program.

We have a mentorship program.

We've gotten involved in the tour industry.

We've made a lot of changes, as has the industry,

with the pandemic.

A lot of changes and we're continuing to change.

But we have still continued our passion with Bonnarooo and the industry.

Nancy Char is our rudder and our sail.

And she's going to talk more about our foundation and our interviewing process and what we do in placement.

Thank you.

Nancy.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deborah.

So we have an application process.

We have a booth right down there around the corner.

You can get access to our application, student supply.

We have an academic year application, so we'll have a new one coming out in July.

And we have our mentorship program that we're interviewing for that runs in January through March.

We have an eight-week program where we have industry sessions and our mentors from all walks of the music industry.

Quite a few, C3 presents folks are our mentors as well.

And we have an internship program that Deborah mentioned where we place students.

In internships, we only support paid internships.

We think it's important for students to be paid.

We also have a scholarship program for students who might need some extra funds to help them move if they live in Alabama and they get a job in Los Angeles.

We help them with an airplane ticket and helping them with their first month's rent because if they're in a paid internship, sometimes that takes four weeks to get their first paycheck.

And we know that.

We also have job shadowing for folks who are interested in going on tour.

Our board members and our mentors are out there touring and they open their doors for students to come check out the tour either for a quick hour tour.

We have students actually here at Bonnarooo from load in to load out when our mentors are here on site.

And sometimes companies come to us for full-time jobs as well.

So with our our graduates, we help them find some full-time jobs out there as well.

We have quite a few leaders here who are working who started in the alumni program who are now leaders at the festival.

And I think that's a huge part of, again, why you guys still feel so importantly inner-woven into what we do.

Like, obviously, I'm just grateful to work with you.

But really, so Brad was replaced by Shelby that guys did an awesome job with Shelby and Shelby, the new Shelby to Shelby is Leo Espinosa.

He was a well done extern.

One of my assistants was a well done extern.

So anyways, it's just incredible that so many of the extras that you guys have helped hire are still around the festival as you guys do a great job in screening and identifying great talent.

I wanted to add we're so grateful to be a part of Planet Roo, this lovely shaded area.

But we get to meet so many people who come through.

We also get to meet all the other organizations who are a part of Planet Roo.

I love the causes that are represented here.

I've met some very fun people, support everyone.

Love meeting you.

Well, I'll tell you, Deborah, I mean, it's touching that your daughter's legacy really lives on.

And I've heard of your organization the last couple of years.

It feels like it's continuing to build, continuing to do the outreach that you're trying to more and more.

So I just, that's off to you for being able to emotionally and carry that on.

I think that's huge.

And thank you for that.

Thank you.

All right.

I think that's one more.

We have a David Bruce photo.

I'm hoping that the winner hasn't left because there's a third token out there with a tick mark on it that was going to be the winner.

So I'd have to think of another option here.

We'll have to get back to you on that because it's an awesome.

I think that's it.

What else?

Yeah, well, I like I just want to say I want to say to the What Podcast guys again, I'm really, really thankful that you guys were were open to this idea of I think your platform is really special.

I think, you know, again, always embracing the good, the bad of Bonnarooo is important.

It's important to show it's not always sunshine and rainbows.

And we go through the ups and downs as well.

But I'm grateful for you guys for getting letting us talk about the things that aren't necessarily why Bonnarooo, why people are coming to Bonnarooo.

But I really respect that you guys do cover the full range of topics on your podcast.

And I'm really grateful that you let us be here today.

Thank you, Kelsey.

Thank you guys for coming out.

We're going to stick around.

So please come up and say hi.

When did you guys get here?

Yesterday?

Everything going well?

Everything good?

I got here about four hours ago.

I didn't set up my camp yet.

What kind of leaves are in mind?

I'm going to catch up with you.

I promise.

You all have a fantastic weekend.

What are we doing?

I think we're done.

Thank you.

Are we giving away?

Happy room.

We're going to have to figure it out.

We're going to find those guys.

They're on site.

Kelsey, thank you for your incredible correspondence over the last couple of years.

It's very much appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you guys.

What Brian said earlier, the fact that we get to do this on a stage at Bonnarooo is beyond my wildest.

So thank you guys.

You're always welcome back as long as how the stage exists.

So please know.

Thank you guys very much for being here.

I know you came to see them, but I appreciate you listening to what the event was about.

Thank you so much.

It's all good.

Come back and enjoy our shade.

We've got a really cool fashion show coming up next.

A new addition to Planet Roo this year is called the Bird's Nest.

We created it in honor of Eric Angry Bird Reisner, who was a Bonnarooo pre-member we lost last year.

He was a curmudgeoning, motor-cool guy that loved all things second-hand and vintage.

And so this is our way of keeping his legacy alive.

We've got a couple upcycled and repurposed vintage designers.

Please check out those Hefe's and Konani Wildcraft.

They're going to be here with me on what they're going to do a fashion show here in a little bit.

That's all going to be sustainable and repurposed materials.

And then we're going to have a little chat about sustainable, how they got into sustainable clothing.

And then we're going to do a clothing stop afterwards.

So if you guys have any items.

Oh, I saw some of that back there.

There's some vintage gear, but I was like, is this like the green armor we just have?

Well, you might need to trade in.

Maybe keep your We Are Neutral shirt, but maybe trade in the shirt under it.

And then basically turn in an item of clothing to get a postcard,

and that postcard can be redeemed for an item of clothing.

So we're just swapping clothes so that nobody's buying new.

Everybody's keeping what's existing, but you still get fresh duds.

So feel free to come back.

That fashion swap is going to continue until 8 o'clock tonight.

I love the, before we started, Meredith from Shower the People was doing.

We talked to her on the show in the past, the tie-dye stuff.

If I went about to jump on stage, I would have loved to make some tie-dye.

I've always wanted to.

They're going to be out there doing tie-dye in the corner.

I'll be back to Shower the People to learn to tie-dye some stuff.

If anybody else is interested in such things.

Yeah, they're there in the corner.

I always end the show, and Russ always has something to say.

Do you have anything else to say?

Thank you all so much.

Thank you guys. Thank you, thank you.

Happy Root.

Happy Root.