The What Podcast
What's next for Bonnaroo?
Season 8, Episode 26
Published June 25, 2025
https://beta.thewhatpodcast.com/episode/whats-next-for-bonnaroo

In my mind, we'll be there whenever they come back, whether it's June of 26 or September of 26.

Yeah, as long as they'll have us, I'll keep going. I can't help myself. I'm addicted to it.

Welcome back to the What Podcast. I'm Barry. That's Brian. We are... Man, I was thinking about this

this morning, Brian. It seems like eons ago we were on the farm and it was only a week ago.

You know, I have a mental illness of the passage of time, so I never... Sometimes a day feels like

a month or a second and it... Yeah. I'm with you and it's especially so because I've been sick

literally all week. I brought the Bonnaflu home bad, bad, bad with me. So... Mine mostly cleared up.

No, mine did not. I'm still... Excuse me. I'm still not 100%. But not to make it about me,

there have been a few things that have happened this week and we're going to touch on those.

I don't know. We'll get as deep as you want to, Brian, into it, but... Yeah, and I guess I'll speak

for all of us. Taco is not going to be able to join us. He's over the hills to grandmother's house.

We go one of his regular trips around that he... Yeah, life does go on. That's one of the things

I wanted to point out today. It does. I'm still in a pattern of don't have a lot to say, don't know

a lot to say. We got a few things to touch on that are a little different than that overall

statement. But also, like, what do we do for a show, right? I mean, do we want to celebrate the

one day or do we want... We do. We do and we will. Maybe it's at the end of this show or maybe it's

next week we'll be doing a lot of different things. I still have trouble figuring out exactly what to

say. And the news from Friday, which we will get specifically into here shortly, which was the

impetus to make sure to do this for this week, only clouds that. Yes, it does. Only clouds it.

I don't think it was wrong approach for a release of information, but it only makes things a little

more convoluted for us selfishly. 100%. So yeah, I'm sitting on the front porch, what was it? 5.30-ish

with my wife and just got the message and said, oh, hey, they're canceling for the foreseeable

future. No set date and obviously giving 100%. And of course, my next thought was,

that's going to make doing a podcast every week kind of difficult.

Yeah, it sure is.

Obviously, you start thinking about your own self. But we'll get into that a little bit. And I have

no answer for that. Not even worried about it. But yeah, so along those lines, what was your

immediate reaction? When you saw, okay, they're giving 100% instead of 75% of tickets back.

First of all, you and I, we don't buy tickets. You and I are media. We get our credentials

as part of media and pretty much always have. However, we still have to buy groceries and travel.

However, we only travel an hour. So let's just be upfront. We're not those folks that are traveling

hours and hours and hours. So I don't want to even pretend. However, as you said-

We're the same boat as everybody or whatever.

But however, as you said last week, and I think you really nailed it, it's just soul crushing.

So we all have our different levels of what this means. But what's your immediate? What's your

thoughts? Well, from the Friday news dump of the 100% refunds and the, it was worded carefully.

We're not making an announcement at this point. Immediate was, well, first of all, I don't remember

which one came first, but Boston Calling, the city festival, has announced a pause for 2026,

about the same timeframe on Friday. So news dump there too. And they came close within each other

so that neither have anything to do with each other other than their festival news on the same day.

100% refunds to everybody is a good, is a really good move.

Think so.

I do, if this is about, and I think it probably needs to be a trust

holding, a trust reestablishing, a trust rebuilding. I don't think they have any,

I don't think it was necessary that they do that. I mean, it wasn't just one day.

Bonnarooo starts on Tuesday. People got two and a half days of a really nice time.

So, but I think that's a good move overall. I think it's a great PR move. I think Live Nation

realizes they're taking a lot of heat, a lot of it unwarranted. And I mean, I'm not going to sit

here and cheerlead for Live Nation. Trust me, it ain't going to happen. It ain't going to happen.

But the comment section's out of control and one, I mean, everywhere. And I guess one thought I had

was, and Brad Parker and Corey Smith, who we talked to a lot and Tuba and many others have

talked about how they pay attention, they pay attention, they read the comments, they look,

they look at everything out there. And I kind of think maybe they don't, they shouldn't read as

much as they do. Thank you. I had the same thought. Okay, good. Because I wanted to, I wanted to say

it carefully that I didn't, because I think it's admirable and it looks, you know, it looks good.

Hey, we're listening to you. We're here. We're going to, you know, and that's good, except for

sometimes maybe reading the comment section is just not good for you. And I've learned that the

hard way and the good way many times in my life, stay away from those damn comment sections because

someone's going to say you're the dumbest person that ever lived. And someone's going to say you're

the smartest guy ever and you're neither. I want to give a quick example. And I think about this

all the time. And it's such a small scale thing, but it's, it's, I think it's so relevant.

A principal, high school principal that I knew of a Catholic high school took a new job and all he

heard was from parents that they needed to instill uniforms. The kids needed to be wearing uniforms.

I mean, every time he was in the line, the drop off line, the pickup line at a ball game, whatever,

he was hearing, we got to get uniforms. So he decided to do a poll. Turns out it was like

8% of the parents and actually wanted a uniform. They were just really, really loud.

Yeah. Most people are not in the comments. Correct. I mean, that's, that's, you know,

take that for what it's worth. But yeah, I read the comments and we alluded to it last week.

You know, I think I saw one this morning that said I walked through center route and it was fine. We

could have had shows there. Yeah, you probably could have, but plazas, you know, eight, nine,

10, whatever, pick numbers were mud pits. So, you know, you gotta, you gotta see big picture and,

and please don't, you know, you gotta see beyond your own nose, I guess.

Yeah. I mean, anecdotes to your

experience that day are great for you and your friends and your loved ones in your circle.

Doesn't mean a damn thing to the overall macro look. And everybody in America Online has a

problem with, well, I had this happen and that's why this is this way. I mean, I'm

good for you. And that's a nice story. Doesn't have anything to do with the great greater picture.

No. And if you heard from somebody who heard from somebody that it was about this or it was

about that or whatever, just let it go. These guys are professionals. They're the very best in the

entire world at what they do. Did they make mistakes? Yes. So we cheerleaders for them most

of the time. Yes. But when they make mistakes, we're going to tell you I'm back to the a hundred

percent. Yeah, I can see it. You don't, you don't necessarily think that that was a necessary to do

what necessary to do. But it feels, I don't know what the word is, extra desperate, whatever.

And it scares me for the future. You were a lot more scared for the future last week than I was.

Now I'm a little more scared for the future. That hasn't let up. The future has not. The future

uncertainty has not let up. I'm still very concerned with that. In some of that wording,

I wish I had it pulled off. I'm sorry. I don't have it. But the talk was, or part of the wording

was about the infrastructure. We've heard you about, you know, the upgrades in the infrastructure.

And I just don't know what it is. Everybody thinks they're going to be able to do. What do you get?

What are you going to do? Bring in a bulldozer and just start like, yeah, pay 700 acres. It's a city.

Yeah, let's just throw it in and let's not be as flippant and say, okay,

pave all the walkways through and everything. Okay. Well, we know that's going to lead to more

issues with rain, water and runoff and heat and capture and release. You know, like imagine a

95 degree weekend where there's no rain and all that asphalt sucks in all that sun all day.

And then it's a city festival. It's not what I want.

Yeah. I mean, I didn't even think about it that way. But then, you know, then you've got,

this place used to be great. It wasn't covered in concrete.

It's a Lynyrd Skynyrd song. I can see the concrete slowly creeping, you know, and so.

General Baez, they pave park it.

Yeah, put up a parking lot, whatever it is. Yeah. And all those things. And to that point,

one of the few things I have very little that I've made notes of self. But if we take out,

and a lot of times I don't like this, if you take out the bad thing, then everything's great. Well,

if you take out 2021, the September show, which we talked to Tuba and he said when they were

talking about Tim Smith, sorry about the director. Yeah, runs festivals for C3.

Yeah, very important in the entire infrastructure. And he said somebody mentioned to them about

when they were moving to September, excuse me, September, that that was hurricane season

and that they all laughed or just like, yeah, well, yeah, yeah. Right. Right. Well, I don't

know if that's because Tuba is not from the South. He's from the Midwest and

hurricane season can affect upwards inland of Tennessee all the time. That is not unusual.

That was not a act of God. That happens. And so I say throw it out. We can throw that one out of the

22 year discussion of Bonnaroo because it wasn't supposed to be in September. It wasn't supposed

to happen this way. That was a strange time. I feel like that is something we can take out of

the mix and out of the equation as far as infrastructure and all the things that people

are now complaining about that Bonnaroo and Live Nation doesn't care about. So you take all those

out and then you look at all the rest of the data, which is 20 other years of mostly an

infrastructure that is perfectly built fine for a music festival of camping out in a rural field in

Tennessee. It may be, if you want to make the argument, it might not be a bad argument. It might

be a very good argument. Having a big camping festival in rural Tennessee, not such a good idea.

If that's what you want to argue, I could listen to that. But the infrastructure has worked for two

decades. And so now what happened last week was the actual outlier. It was the actual one time

that when it was supposed to happen at the time of the year that it was supposed to

be in June, which is normally a scorcher, we had a record setting May in Tennessee,

or at least in the county we live in, which is two counties away. 100 years record of rain

in May leading into June. That is an outlier and an act of God, if that's the kind of thing you

want to characterize it as. So I think we need to take the debate to what do we do in reference to

last week? Not last week because of their failure to act from 21. I don't think there was any failure

to act. That was a hurricane. We're not getting a hurricane in June. That would be something that's

never happened. A hurricane that, well, maybe not never, but in modern anybody alive's memory,

that has never happened. And so that is something you can say, well, I mean, Jesus, what are you

supposed to do? And so let's just say that they do intend to invest heavily into some kind of

infrastructure of drainage. Cause I know there are things you can do. I don't know what it is and how

much. I mean, but yeah, what would it do? Would it have gotten us out quicker? I mean, you can't

have the festival. There was no way you're going to fix that farm to continue.

In the current situation of last week, no, but if let's just say that we think that you can,

you can make infrastructure that can make this better. That's not me. I think the farm is

almost perfect. The infrastructure improvements they've made has made it almost, nothing's perfect.

It's close to as good as it can get. Let's say they're going to do that though. How long is

that going to take? Well, real infrastructure, how long is that going to take? It's going to

take more than six months, six weeks, eight, what I mean, and to what end for four days.

Let me ask this or say this there. I mean, obviously again, going back, if, if you're that

person whose car was stuck in the mud and you weren't getting help,

you can always find those. And there was a lot of that guys. I mean, I'm not, I'm not, you know,

I'm not going to discount that. There was a lot of that. I still want to hear. And that's,

that's the one thing we're waiting on. And please, if you're listening to this,

don't think we're just ignoring it. You know, we're not, we were able to get out where we were

because we were fairly close, but if we had waited, it would have been still muddy. It would

have been terrible. You left earlier than I did. Yeah, I don't have, I can't park my car where you

guys are. I have a different parking place and it was the best, the first time I, you know, I would

rather be able to be closer with you guys, but because I wasn't, I was right out. Cause I was

20 feet. If, if, if I had parked where I was originally supposed to, which would have been

20 feet closer to that pond, if you know, you know, I'm probably still there. Cause they were

stuck on Tuesday. Our camp mates had to pull a couple of people out of the mud on Tuesday.

So there were some nightmares there that I don't even know about because when I say I don't look

at the comments section, I mean, well, that's a lot of that. That's my point. If you're the one,

you know, if you were stuck and you feel abandoned and you have problems with the infrastructure and

you're one of these that believes that, you know, staff left, volunteers left, people abandoned that

kind of thing. We've all heard that I'm still waiting to hear. And I think we will eventually

hear from C3, but I don't know when it'll be a while. It'll be a while and it'll be pretty much

mission statement kind of, you know, which I understand. Cause there's a whole lot of

money involved right now. But the thing about, I'm sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. No, I was gonna say

the thing about a monster size festival like that is you have a ton of turnover and staff and a lot

of it's volunteers. And so a lot of that stuff might've happened. I mean, there might've been

lack of help because people did just, I don't know, not want to help. And that feel like it

wasn't their job. They're not getting, they don't get, because a lot of those people, their payment

is the festival is their time at the fest. And now they don't have that. And so maybe there was

people saying, you know, maybe they're just, they were in their own mood or in their own headspace

or in their own place. And it was like, you know what? I mean, my work here is done. You know,

I got to get out of here too. So good luck to you. If you're stuck in the mud, sorry, but I'm kind of

stuck in the mud too. Yeah. And the irony, if that's the right word is that we've spent 50 weeks

or whatever with our friends, Brad and Cori. And I consider them friends, hyping this thing up. They

could not have been more transparent. They could not have been more available. They love it as much

as we do. And now it hurts. It hurts me to see some of this criticism of, you know, live nation

doesn't care type of thing. And I'm like, are you kidding? I mean, what did we just spend the last

year doing? You know, no other festival has, um, a network of like the, this kind of, this kind of,

um, coverage of in, in the podcast realm. And there's two or three of us, right. That do this.

And I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of people that do things, but that, but the, do you think

Electric Forest has festival organizers every other month calling in, joining shows, talking

about every single thing, ask me any things every other couple of months on Reddit. I mean,

you ever heard of Coachella being like, Hey, yeah, yeah, we're here for you. I mean, I'm sure

there's some, some guest appearances, but the amount of effort that this, that this

organization, C3 and, and, and under the live nation umbrella puts into this and care and concern

is, is top-notch is, is as high as it gets industry standard, um, celebratory stuff. And so, yeah,

I don't like to hear that either, but I also, if you don't like live nation, join the club.

I get it. I mean, you're going to, and interestingly, I hope you're going to hear that in our,

the conversation that we had on the stage with Brad Parker and Alderman Ryan French,

Priscilla and Rebecca. Um, I mean, it's a love fest. There's just no way around it.

We spent what 45 minutes talking about how much we love this festival. Yeah. And the community

loves it and what it means to the community. And that's what's so heartbreaking. Think about

that, Brian. I mean, we were like four o'clock on Thursday, a love fest, 24 hours.

And now everybody hates it. It's, now everybody hates it. Yeah. And, and for just, for those that

don't know that programming for the weekend, what it was going to be with the different panels from,

from RooHamm and Rue bus coming that didn't happen. And I really feel bad for them because they were,

they were just as excited to do this as we were. And they had different topics that they were going

to, um, they were going to expand on. Ours happened to be, and I think it was because,

I know, I know it didn't ask, but because of our, we're not locals, but we're as close as you get.

And, and the celebration of it and what it means to the community and the, the state and the tax

revenue. And I mean, it was, it got a little into the weeds on numbers for a minute, but overall it

was a celebration, big celebration. And then one day later, it's like,

what were y'all talking about yesterday? Isn't that crazy? And it's not like,

cause some of the other panel topics were the future of music with EDM and things like that.

Like AI and digital impact. And then, uh, Rue, Rue, uh, the real Rue bus guys were going to

talk about their totem project, which is expanding out to get more people the opportunity for this.

So those are all great topics. All three were good topic ideas. It just so happened that ours was,

let's love on something that everybody's going to hate in 24 hours. And so that hurts too.

It hurts. But I think the importance there is it's not just, Hey, come bring your money, spend your

money and watch a band and leave. And we're going to take your money and leave. It's we're committed

year round. And we talked about that a bunch during this thing. And that's, that's, I mean,

part of me feels like we should just do nothing, but part of me wants people to hear this because

it's important. And, uh, I think it will, you know, in my mind, we'll be there whenever they come back,

whether it's June or September of 26. As long as they'll have us, I'll keep going. I can't help

myself. I'm addicted to it. Uh, our friend Patrick at a sober, who sent me a nice note just

yesterday, I don't know where I was already in the dumps on some other stuff that had nothing to do

with this. And then, but I'm still in the dumps for a week. And it was just so, how are you holding

up, man? How you guys doing? Just a nice note. And, and, and we went back and forth a little bit.

And I said, you know, there's, there's a part of me, you know, I just can't not go.

And, and, and, you know, I, I do have addiction issues, as you know, as you know, too, Patrick,

as we're, you know, both recover, you know, and long past our past, uh, drug and alcohol

addictions, and when we share that together, and that's his whole, that's his whole life,

it's his whole organization. And he's like, I get it. I'm addicted to this too.

Well, and you know, again, it's, it's going to sound trite and people don't believe it.

It's not just the music. It's not just the festival. It's the fact that you and I do this

every week. It's the fact that you and I are friends because of this thing.

And then Patrick has become a great friend of mine. Patrick has become a friend.

Patrick Whelan from, from sober that I would never met. Um, I mean, not, not met and created

a relationship. Yeah, yeah, no. And the, there's so many people that came up before and after this

event, this panel discussion and the next day at the beer exchange. I mean, I, I, I said it last

week and it's the absolute truth. I asked two questions, raise your hand. If people at your

work are tired, are you talking about Bonnarooo every single day of the week and raise your hand

if this festival changed your life and you know, everybody raised their hand. So yeah, they did.

And that, that could sound hyperbolic. If you didn't know better, it's not, no, no, no, no,

it's not an exaggeration. It's not people just caught up in the moment. Um, it is a, it is such

a, it's such a connectivity, connective, uh, I don't have the right words. It's just such a

connectivity to people. Um, the radiate positivity at all. It's all real. It's not goki. It's not,

no, no, no, it's not a gimmick. It's not a, it's not a bumper sticker. It's real. And you don't

find that you don't find all this authenticity like that often. I, I, there are a couple of

groups here in town locally that I've said are as close as any community that I know of, and it

doesn't matter which ones Bonnarooo is the only other one for me. I mean, it's, it's, it's consuming.

My whole basement is full of stuff. Uh, yeah, this is just scratches the service. I got a whole

wall of stuff. I mean, it's, it's become a, I mean, we have, you know, so many, so many connections

and lifelong friends from it. So yeah, it feels like I'm rambling a little bit.

It's hard to really figure out what to focus on. We are not going to do, uh,

we're going to do 20 minutes and then do an hour and a half. We're, we're not going to do this for

long today. Um, no, we're almost done today. Um, what we do next week, I have no clue. Russ is,

as we alluded to earlier, is on vacation this week. Um, that's why he's not here. Um, we,

he did a couple of interviews with the common John people, which we will run. Um, and then we

still have the, Hey, nothing. Yeah. Which is, if you guys just want to just escape the, you know,

the bad news cycle for a minute and just listen to a couple of kids that I think are going places

that I enjoyed. I mean, we enjoyed immensely talking to it. We've talked, we talk to people

a lot and sometimes it's just like, I don't know what that was about, but thanks. You know,

that's good. That was a really nice conversation. And I wanted to say too, and I, and I, and just

cause it's, it's on my mind and if I don't do it now, I forget, but every year Bonnarooo or at least

the last several to me is sort of taking on a theme. Last year for me, it was the hug and howdy.

People think I'm kidding. People think I'm being trite. I'm not. That's exactly what I wanted last

year. I wanted to go and meet, see, hug, touch, um, you know, hug and howdy the people that I've

been talking to all year. Um, years past, it was about taking pictures years past. It was about

seeing every band I could see every year is different this last year. And I didn't think

about it till it was over. And Brian, I think you'll know what I'm talking about. This was a

pretty emotional one. Um, I mean, we, the festival lost Jonathan Mayers, um, just days before, just

days before five days for, and again, we have the advantage. We have the unbelievable opportunity

to have been doing this for a long time. So we know people who, you know, are running it,

they were very emotional. This was a power. That was a powerful loss for them. Uh, we also ran into,

and I hope to have them on the show, uh, the done well, right? D U N N dot org. Um,

forgot all about that. I'm glad you met. I'm glad you met. I mean, that's what I'm saying. So the,

the moments that I took away from that day and a half that we had were, were, were a powerfully,

emotional human connections. They were not music. They were not, you know, hey, I'm on the farm

at a music festival. They were human beings connecting. Um, and you know, you don't expect

that type of thing. That's my point. Uh, you were there when we were hearing about, when we were

meeting and then we ended up meeting, uh, we'll explain what done well is a young, young girl who

started as an intern and made, made huge connections and was literally killed, uh,

in a horrible accident. I can't even imagine, but her parents have, have created a foundation to help

people who want to get into the business. I mean, I didn't expect that conversation. Did you? I mean,

I didn't see that coming at all. Um, and then we got to meet them wide open and even circled back

around and said, you know, yeah, we'll do something and, um, to, to, to talk about it and bring

awareness to it. Uh, the one thing I guess I want to say to kind of like Brad Parker and, and, and,

in general, uh, Hey Brad, um, is that there, I feel like some of the, the, the backlash he's getting,

I mean, he's a, he's, he's a big character, right? He's, he's, he puts himself out there.

And so you're going to get a lot, a good and bad from that. And he knows that he knows exactly

what he's doing. His, his whole message from the jump and I liked it and I agreed with it. And then

when it got, when we had our issue was kind of look back and like this, you know, the, this didn't

age well thing. Um, you know, we're so back thing, you know, he was so excited, everybody was excited

about the lineup and from the jump, it's like, we are so back. And he, and that was kind of a running

theme with, he's not a huge social explode, the flood, the market kind of thing, but you know,

I see him out there, I follow him and, and, and it's, and it's like, we're not back. Yeah,

never not back. And so when people, sometimes it's not so great. And we're also not back. And,

and when people see that and hear it, they feel they, I don't know what their feeling might be,

but then something like that happens. And it's like, you know, I think he's getting unfair.

No question. Blowback. Well, I mean, we're a society that some somebody has to take the blame.

It's that we got to blame somebody, you know, and he's the kind of guy that knows how to do it,

absorb it, react right. Um, and just decompress. And that's what the entire organization needs to

do for, for, you know, for anybody who's not been around for many, many of these years. I don't think

there's ever been a year where the Bonnarooo next year lineup dates, not, or just the festival dates

were not announced either the final day of the festival or within one day of the festival ending

for the next year. Maybe there was some, it takes a while. Sometimes they go a week or so.

Well, but it's usually quickly. And there have been some where they were there. What they do is

announce presale. You can buy, but I mean, they've, they've waited a little bit because I, and I'm,

I'm, I don't mean to disagree with you. I saw some of that where somebody said, well, they did,

they weren't selling tickets on Monday. I'm like, are you kidding? They were sure. But they

tried to get their boots out of the mud on what they never said was we're, we'll get back to you

like about as far as the festival 100%. They've never said, yeah, we'll get back to you later.

And that's, and that's, so that's an unprecedented moment that makes, I think might've been part of

what made hit you as far as like, well, maybe I don't know. Yeah, no, look, there are some hard

ass conversations going on in some offices right now. And some people's feet are being held to fire.

Cause again, somebody's got to, somebody got to take the blame. So,

and they don't need to have those conversations today. Have some decompression time for a minute.

I will give them that that is smart. And that, you know, we've, you and I have jokingly talked

about the pause because there have been so many festivals that have hit the pause.

It's a trendy way of putting, we're not doing this anymore. We're not doing this again. And this one,

I don't know. I don't want to believe that. Obviously that was my first reaction.

This one, they need to talk about some stuff. So they took a huge hit. I mean, there's no question

about it. It's again, we've talked about, you know, in the past, some of these rain things have

happened on Saturday night or Sunday, not on Thursday or not on Friday. And not with the

expected two more rounds of that kind of weather. The bulk of your event is not, I'm out. All right.

We could go on and on. I did want to say this, and I don't remember if you were there

and Ashley Caps may be mad at me if I say this years ago, he was on with me and Brad Steiner

and during a break. So it was not for public. And he said, please don't take it in. So

I'm going to throw him under the bus here. Ashley doesn't care at this point. Not at this point.

And that's my hope. But we started talking about the whole Wednesday. You know, it used to be you

could get in after 2 a.m. Wednesday into Thursday. And then it was midnight Wednesday.

Wednesday. He said, there is a, I don't, I'm paraphrasing. He said there's a movement or

a trend or a discussion to have it have people get in earlier and earlier. And he said, my God,

I hope it doesn't happen. And I've thought about that so often. I mean, think about that, how that

has to stress. Oh, it stresses the organization. It stresses the organization. It stresses the

toll booths. It stresses the infrastructure and the parking and everything. And, you know,

that doesn't have anything to do with last week necessarily. Other than you might have a stretch

thin staff that by the time the bleep hits the fan or the water hits the ground, you didn't have

enough help where you needed it. Maybe that is a discussion. How would it have been different?

I mean, if the bulk of people weren't getting in there until Wednesday night, knowing the rain was

coming versus, you know, people like Taco who were there for Tuesday and Wednesday and had

wiffle ball games and had, you know, parties and by all accounts had a fabulous time.

Absolutely. Just, I don't know. It just put an end to it for discussion.

Yeah, that's a it's worth it. It's not unfair to say I don't.

But it does stress the staff. And I think that really is more the point is, you know, you're

trying to run basically a week long. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's crazy. I have no interest

on being there on Tuesday. I mean, that's not I don't think that's just, hey, old guy can't take

it. I was just too long. I agree. I mean, for years, it was just Friday, Saturday, Sunday,

you got there late Thursday, you did your three days, you went home. I mean, it was more traditional

and that was and then that added Thursday for a little kind of feels like it was designed as a

way to ease in and that traffic issues and then the additional added on also is for mainly for

traffic issues, wouldn't you say? The biggest reason was to really get traffic down to not

really a problem most of the time, which they mostly did. They mostly did. Even though this year

there was a lot of talk of I've waited longer this year than normal. Okay, I don't know, whatever.

Sorry. And I guess that's part of what I'm saying is it worked. It fixed the traffic. But now you've

got to entertain, feed, secure, you got to clean up after you've got to have for two and a half extra

days. So yeah, it stresses that. Yes, that's the point. And Ashley's been doing, you know,

promotion. He kind of knows what he's doing. Festival organization for a long time. And if that

guy says, I don't think we should do this on Wednesday or Tuesday or whatever, then he probably,

you know, his opinion should be listened to. But at that point, that had to have been 10,

12 years ago. He said that. Maybe. I don't know.

Okay.