VIP--What'd ya think

I went VIP in 2006 and again this year. This time it was a joke. I would stay at a hotel or something else, before VIP again.
1. No drinks. All free the first night, then we go to eat on day 2 and the lady says you have to pay. You mean for beer. No for water, everything. WTF? And free beer on night 1, not the best idea. Everyone tries to make VIP pay by drinking 20 beers. Then they all either puke in the toilets or diarhea them to death. For what we pay you should get free beer the whole weekend. Really, think about it, the beers don't cost them even $2. They charge $6, which is riduclous, but let's say $2. Give people 1 beer at a time, not 4, give them in a cup, no taking from the dining area, the average person wouldn't drink 20 beers all weekend. It wouldn't cost them that much. Of course it's lost revenue, since they make a ton selling you beer all weekend.
2. If you're going to start the shows at 12:30 then start serving lunch at 11:30. Don't say you're going to start at 12 but really not open until 12:15 or 12:30. It seemed like it was late starting every day. Don't even dream of going late, you get a little of this, a little of that with flys all over it.
3. How about you just serve me a decent hamburger and hot dog and not a bunch of other stuff that was mostly mediocre. I'd rather have basics that are good, than a bunch of stuff that's awful to mediocre. Also feel free to drain the grease off any meat item you serve. Oh and get this, when they did have hamburgers and you get to the put some ketchup, mustard, mayo on the bun area, it's not some convenient pump it out and move on container, it's in a big gallon thing that people are having to stick a tiny spoon down in. It all seemed like it was their first time doing this, when you know it wasn't. Ok there was a pump on some of it on day 1 but not by the last day. Here's an idea. Pizza. Here's another. Corporate food sponsors. Get Taco Bell in their 1 night, get corkys barbecue, or whatever else is big in Tennessee.
4. Showers. Isn't hot shower one of the things i'm paying vip money for? Mine was warmish for literally 3 seconds, then ice ice cold. Others complained of scalding hot water. Again, not the first year, you should have this figured out. Mine was clogged up and full of water when I walked into it. Amazingly shower guy had just looked in it and gave it the ok.
5. Bathroom. So nasty. Some of the bathroom people worked hard, then the next shift would be literally laying around doing nothing.
6. Camp size. We pulled our SUV in longwise last time, put up our tent and sunshade and had a little room left. This time we parked crossways, hanging over the neighbors a few feet, and were still tight. The spaces weren't uniform. I saw a Honda civic parked sideways and it was over on the neighbors.
7. No where to walk. You had these rows that were hundreds of yards long, with no cross walks. So you had people going to and from the showers, toilets, and food tents, cutting through everyones tents. Hey I did it to, a fact of life, but it's annoying when you're just getting to sleep and drunk guy walks by your tent going "BONNNaroooo!!!" Next time, make some crosswalks every 100 feet or so. Hell you could even get crazy and stick some of those solar lights on them so everyone isn't stumbling around drunk/high.
7. Security. The bag check was much more of a hassle this time than in 06. Of course it was nothing like the regular folks. I screwed up and went through their entrance on Thursday night. I felt like I was under arrest. They let the guy 2 in front of me take a pipe in after they found it. The guy in front of me got his glow necklace things taken, and I couldn't take in the sealed sierra mist that they had just given me in VIP, again WTF?
8. Arrival. We got there about 2pm. Very little line. We pulled up to the place, dude puts on our wrist bands, and is ready to shoo us along. We ask for a map. Dim light bulb goes on over his head, we point to the pile of things they're giving every car. "oh yeah" "Do you know where' you're going?" Yeah i'm Kreskin the mindreader. Your only job is to stick this thing on my wrist and hand me something and you can't even do that?
All in all the people seemed to just not give a shit. Like they're getting paid whether they do their job or not, so screw it. The people in 06 seemed much more friendly and helpful.
9. This isn't a vip grip but a roo for everyone gripe. I know it's rained there before. They have to know that when it does, the water runs down the sides of the tents and makes huge amounts of mud. There is a wonderous space age solution. It's called raingutter, look in to it.
10. It's ridiculous to me to claim to be green and have recycling barrels all over and then for instance after pearl jam you see 10 zillion plastic water bottles on the field. Here's an idea, give out free water all over the place. Either get city water, or drill some wells, and filter the hell out of it, maybe even chill it. Either way, encourage people to bring a refillable bottle, not the huge amount of plastic bottled water we all currently bring.

damn, that was a long review

^I agree VIP was the way to go we had plenty of room, and a good location. The Food thing was a little out of control. Overall though I think I had my most positive Bonnaroo experience.

^lol at uncle cletus. i bet he makes a badass pulled pork sandwich tho .

The conditions were nothing unbearable nor unworkable, espeically for people from he region. As for people being rude and mean, what do you expect? You pay about 150 dollars PER DAY for VIP, and are promised all these things. Bonnaroo needs to hire people who care and who are able to deliver the amenities they promised the customer. I would gladly pay for VIP, but not as long as I hear all these people talk about the promises not being followed through on.

Wow. I've been GA before, but this was my first year VIP. It was totally worth it to me. Last year we went ('06) was GA, and I was so exhausted that we may have only made it to 14 or 15 shows. With VIP we were able to see 26, and still have time to do the ferris wheel, shop around, etc.. If you take into account how much money you would spend to see each act it quickly adds up... Getting 2 or 3 well-balanced meals every day, showers, nice bathrooms (womens' were nice, anyway), close-proximity camping, shorter lines to get in, and quiet neighbors were all great bonuses for me. All those gave me so much more energy to do everything I wanted to do. I got a LOT more out of my ROO experience this year than I had in the past.

The buffet sitations was laughable, that was my only complaint. I found that the bathroom situation was variable as well. it seemed to depend on time of day. Late morning on Fri the showers were nasty, full of garbage from the shampoo samples and kinda cold. The rest of the weekend I waited till later in the day to shower it was fine.

I used to cook for the Meals on Wheels program. It is not hard to prepare food for several thousand at a time, when it is done by pros. However, the fact that food was being prepared off the site of the VIP tent and driven in made me think it was half ass. I waited on line several times for food and each time left with nothing. Once I waited almost an hour in a long line and gave up. Came back an hour later, still no food and long lines. People behind the food line waiting for a truck to come with a few burgers that were snarffed up by the first few people and then the wait began again.

Just my two cents but I hoped Id get a least a few meals over the weekend, I stopped trying and just ate my own food and bought in centeroo. Why didn't they have a grill and a cook right on site, I dont see the logic. I would not feel ripped off if it were not such a part of the sales pitch for VIP. Just my two $.02.

Roo gets massive karma for fixing check-in after only one bad year of VIP check-in. Also, while cleaning restrooms were off and on, there were some restrooms that were really quite nice- and for most of the festival. Those with the weird little "lobby" (and in men's with black urinals) were very nice usually. Showers were hit and miss.

Lines for VIP food were only an issue twice out of 7 meals for me (and 1 was the party). Food was-- um, mass-catering food. And all you can eat. And I ate. Not much more to it, some was shruggable. Wait- I am really confused about the review that said lunch didn't start until noon with shows at 12:30-- nearly every day I ate at 11am on the dot (one day they opened before then). The actual published time was 11-3 and they did that every day I saw.

Water and soda have never been free, not sure where that got mixed up in some people's perceptions.

Security: VIP should not complain AT ALL. yes, the first day (before mainstage opened) they did check bags and stuff, as always. And as always, by day 2 they stop checking those and just hassle for open containers. MEANWHILE if you enter through the VIP mainstage entrance you can smuggle in 9 midgets and a cooler of transplanted monkey hearts and nobody would know.

And the VIP Mound: great idea, near-perfect execution. Next time, still leave us bathrooms like the bleachers used to have. But the angles and grade of the hill was done very well, and close.

Worst of VIP: showers being so hit and miss, drinks not being discounted at all*

* but seriously, considering I just walked 2 minutes from my camp and could take drinks into centeroo, why I'd be paying for drinks at all is dumb. I didn't pay for a single drink in VIP- no need, I brought plenty.

My best VIP experience yet. I can pretty much ditto what iSkew said ^^ well, other than "and in men's with black urinals".

This was my first year and would never be able to go any other way. Took us 45 minutes to get our bracelets and go to our camp. After all the worrying I did about saving a spot next to us, I feel like a dope. They were just pretty much young guys getting the flow of cars in, we told them about our friends coming in on the plane and they were so cool about it. So no problems at check in to our camp. It was in the perfect location. One full row over from the VIP tents. Easy access to bathrooms which was important at 5am.
We only had one "problem" at the Centeroo check point and that was with two chairs. They wouldn't let us in with them but were letting other people actually walk by with the same chairs while we were standing there trying to get them past. No problems really, we just gave them to a friend and he got them in for us about 2 minutes later, past the same lady! I mean there was a 12 x 12 EZ up in front of us in the field at one point!
I had option of warm water every morning in my shower. They were a little nasty, but that was expected. Wear flip flops and no worries there. Bathrooms were for the most part clean. I liked the people taking care of them. Everyone seemed pretty nice. I didn't encounter any rude staff, but they mostly know only about their little area and not much else.
Food was the only disappointment. We had enough water, soda and alcohol to drown an army, so we never had to buy anything either in or out of the VIP area. We had water bottles that we put Gatorade crystals in for Centeroo. That saved a lot of $$ in the long run. But I agree with an above poster. Have some decent hot dogs and hamburgers, throw out a huge pot of Spaghetti with some sauce and call it a day. There was too much stuff in gravy, and I had to ask at least once a day what something was. I was not impressed with the food at all. I ate a lot of salad and cookies and if I don't see a brownie for a while I'll be happy .
To sum up....I would do it again in a heartbeat. Close proximity, showers and bathrooms, no 5 hour wait to get in. It's a no brainier for me. I could live on the VIP food if I had to, but sometimes the lines were just too long or we never got back in time for dinner. I had to remind myself to eat so it was nothing that ruffled my feathers too much.
All in all a great first time experience. Will be looking into the line up for next year!

Well, don't over-simplify too much-- it's not like people don't cook anything in VIP, that we also didn't get a free poster and tee and a party with free microbrews, and when you talk proximity I could literally walk in 3 minutes into the What Stage area with my pockets filled with beer and food and wine and... So while I can see your want to point out how good you had it in G.A., and that's awesome, that's hardly the norm and not a full picture of VIP to paint it only from one lens. Just sayin'.

Other than the food logistics, I have no complaints. One more line, with a few more vehicles transporting food in and empty pans out, would have made all the difference. That should have been an easy fix made abundantly clear in its necessity from the first night.

That said, I thought check-in was a breeze. Was a little peeved that we only got one schedule booklet to share between two people, but it was still easy. So that problem was definitely solved.

Was also a bit taken aback by the size of our space. Less than half of the normal sized space from last year. We made it work, largely because we were near the edges and encouraged the folks on the end to take more than their room, over that edge. It worked out, but only because we were near the end.

I went with a Bonnaroo virgin this year. He was unhappy about the food availabilty. Was unhappy with the cold showers, even at 8 or 9 at night. Was unhappy with the availability of men's rooms. Then I took him to GA while it was raining on Saturday morning. He was suddenly a lot more zen about what we had!

I'm just jealous of all you big pimps who have the extra green for VIP...but my GA experience this year WAS pretty damn awesome...guess the roo gods were smiling down on us

Paying any amount of money doesn't give a person the right to be rude to people who are just trying to do their jobs. If the catering people were being rude, or were deliberately not working or something, that would be one thing. If it was poor planning, the people on the receiving end of the rudeness probably didn't have a whole lot to do with the planning or organization of the catering. (But I wasn't there, so maybe I'm wrong.)

Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive, but your comment struck me as being the same as saying it's expected (and thus, at least somewhat okay) for people to be rude to their waitresses if their meal is expensive and the kitchen's backed up.