Whether it's your first Bonnaroo or you’re a music festival veteran, we welcome you to Inforoo.
Here you'll find info about artists, rumors, camping tips, and the infamous Roo Clues. Have a look around then create an account and join in the fun. See you at Bonnaroo!!
Ticket sales dropped 30k between 2015 and 2016. That doesn't happen in one year if the quality of the product is consistent.
Bonnaroo apologists like to pretend the fest had some long, slow decline due to factors out of its control. But that's just not what happened. It was chugging along, selling lots of tickets, then LiveNation came in and restructured the lineups, and it stopped selling lots of tickets. That's it. That's all there is to it.
You know there are people whose job it is to do market research. They send out feedback forms to consumers, go over the responses, ect. They did research after last year to see what the problem was.
You notice how all of the things you and others like to complain about were not addressed? That is because what you like to complain about, is not an issue anywhere but on this message board.
That is so incredibly false. My whole group that has been going to Bonnaroo for years have completely lost interest in the festival. Every time I have a real life conversation with someone who goes to Bonnaroo the same issues we talk about on this board get brought up. Even Reddit criticizes Bonnaroo for the same reasons we do.
I don't think anyone is arguing that Bonnaroo stayed the same all those years, just that it was good all those years. Now it's not good. The lineup sucks, set times are shorter, less late nights. Everyone here thinks it sucks and everyone in the general public thinks it sucks, thats why they can't even approach the same ticket sales they had before 2016.
Even Bonnaroo's biggest defender doesn't appear to be actually going.
It was pretty obvious what we wanted and they gave it to us pretty much every year until last year. Sales were way down last year and not so great this year either, despite having U2. It's not really that confusing.
2004 - The Dead, Dave Matthews, Trey Anastasio, Bob Dylan, David Byrne, Primus - 90,000 (Wiki) - First "DJ/Electronic act" is Cut Chemist line 8, no others I recognize, also ZERO hip hop (except for Cut Chemist ironically).
2014 - Elton John, Kanye West, Jack White, Lionel Richie, Vampire Weekend, Avett Brothers - 90,000 (Wiki) - Skrillex #8 overall, first Jam band is Umph, pretty low, and from what I hear also not at night.
Theses are wildly different tops, and it trickles down similarly. If you were STOKED for 2004, 2014 arguably didn't do much for you. Both brought in 90K. So maybe it wasn't 100% due to lineup, there are a lot of factors involved. But to think you got the same thing year in and year out is silly.
Highest selling Roo was 12' which also had RHCP as the 2.
I think there's a lot of "back in my day" out of contexting here.
I think one easy way to look at it would be to analyze the metacritic scores of albums the artists on the lineups have put out, but nobody wants to do that of course.
I'm surprised that you don't just instinctually see the difference in this lineup from even 2014. It isn't about the genre, its about the quality of each act and variety of acts. 2002-2004 wouldn't have been my favorites due to lack of variety.
Just take 2014 vs. this Lineup (all my opinion)
Acts that were relevant before 2005
14: Elton John, Kanye West, Jack White, Lionel Richie, Flaming Lips, Nick Cave, Neutral Milk Hotel, Lauryn Hill, Bobby Womack, Ice Cube, Cake, Damon Albarn, Slightly Stoopid, Drive By Truckers, Mastodon
17: U2, RHCP, Prez Hall count?, Umphreys, Sphongle
Metal
14: Mastodon, Meshuggah, Deafheaven
17: N/A
"World" Music
14: Entire tent on Friday dedicated with 5-6 bands
17: Angelique Kidjo
Good Hip-Hop
14: Kanye, Lauryn Hill, Ice Cube, Chance, Pusha T, Danny Brown
17: Chance, Skepta, Noname
Good Indie / Rockish / Fest Trendy Stuff
14: Vampire Weekend, Phoenix, Cut Copy, Chromeo, Broken Bells, Naked & Famous, James Blake, Janelle Monae, Little Drgaon, Warpaint, Disclosure
17: XX, Future Islands, PTM, Car Seat, Warpaint
3 total superjams in 2014, the main two were both more exciting than what was released today.
More bands overall that have taken a musical risk in their career.
LN didnt take a Jam fest and have Billy Joel headline it.
What's your argument here? That because Billy Joel headlined in 2015, 30k fewer people bought tickets the next year?
College kids didn't know who LCD was and didn't care about The Dead, coupled with more options locally, caused Roo to do poorly last year.
This year they got bigger name headliners and it is doing considerably better; but again given the amount of festivals these days, and festivals in the southeast which Roo typically pulls from in general; the interest isn't there anymore for 80k to camp for 4 days, and spend hundreds each, when they could just go to fests in their nearby city.
I posted on here a month after the lineup was released that the goal they were shooting for was 70k. That was the goal, and it was 5k less than the average you keep bringing up. That should tell you that the market is just not the same as it used to be.
Pretty much nailed it. He just singled out a couple of acts from 2 years. That's not really a good way to judge anything. But look at the lineups from like 06-14 and tell me the last couple years are not drastically different from that. They totally changed the way they're booking and they're obviously going for a completely different audience.
ok you're still picking the year when it went from Jam fest to Radiohead. How are you going to say I'm cherry picking when you are ignoring the fact they went from WSP/DMB in 05 to Radiohead/Tom Petty in 06. That's drastically different.
That was a change for the better. It started as a jam fest that I probably wouldn't have even been interested in the first year. It grew into a very diverse lineup that made me want to go every year. To suddenly fall off and make me not even sad about not going is something. This lineup is a huge leap in the wrong direction. Last year was the first indication that it was going in that direction, then BAM they dropped this load on us. Anyway if I were going this superjam wouldn't disappoint me, because it's better than everything else late night. But when compared against past superjams it falls short.
LN didnt take a Jam fest and have Billy Joel headline it.
What's your argument here? That because Billy Joel headlined in 2015, 30k fewer people bought tickets the next year?
My argument is blaming LiveNation for changing what the fest was about in 16 is silly considering it had changed more than once in it's history.
I think festivals like Peach and Lockn maybe don't get off the ground if Roo is still booking WSP and Lesh to headline, but they decided to move on from that, and despite doing so, tickets remained the same. I think it has less to do with the lineup being bad, I think it's fine, and as far as C3/LN fests I still think it's better.
2004 - The Dead, Dave Matthews, Trey Anastasio, Bob Dylan, David Byrne, Primus - 90,000 (Wiki) - First "DJ/Electronic act" is Cut Chemist line 8, no others I recognize, also ZERO hip hop (except for Cut Chemist ironically).
2014 - Elton John, Kanye West, Jack White, Lionel Richie, Vampire Weekend, Avett Brothers - 90,000 (Wiki) - Skrillex #8 overall, first Jam band is Umph, pretty low, and from what I hear also not at night.
Theses are wildly different tops, and it trickles down similarly. If you were STOKED for 2004, 2014 arguably didn't do much for you. Both brought in 90K. So maybe it wasn't 100% due to lineup, there are a lot of factors involved. But to think you got the same thing year in and year out is silly.
Highest selling Roo was 12' which also had RHCP as the 2.
I think there's a lot of "back in my day" out of contexting here.
I think one easy way to look at it would be to analyze the metacritic scores of albums the artists on the lineups have put out, but nobody wants to do that of course.
I'm surprised that you don't just instinctually see the difference in this lineup from even 2014. It isn't about the genre, its about the quality of each act and variety of acts. 2002-2004 wouldn't have been my favorites due to lack of variety.
My main argument is that 02-05 probably was someone's golden years.
What's your argument here? That because Billy Joel headlined in 2015, 30k fewer people bought tickets the next year?
College kids didn't know who LCD was and didn't care about The Dead, coupled with more options locally, caused Roo to do poorly last year.
This year they got bigger name headliners and it is doing considerably better; but again given the amount of festivals these days, and festivals in the southeast which Roo typically pulls from in general; the interest isn't there anymore for 80k to camp for 4 days, and spend hundreds each, when they could just go to fests in their nearby city.
I posted on here a month after the lineup was released that the goal they were shooting for was 70k. That was the goal, and it was 5k less than the average you keep bringing up. That should tell you that the market is just not the same as it used to be.
Launchpad, in the nicest possible way - you are wrong.
College kids didn't know who LCD was and didn't care about The Dead, coupled with more options locally, caused Roo to do poorly last year.
This year they got bigger name headliners and it is doing considerably better; but again given the amount of festivals these days, and festivals in the southeast which Roo typically pulls from in general; the interest isn't there anymore for 80k to camp for 4 days, and spend hundreds each, when they could just go to fests in their nearby city.
I posted on here a month after the lineup was released that the goal they were shooting for was 70k. That was the goal, and it was 5k less than the average you keep bringing up. That should tell you that the market is just not the same as it used to be.
Launchpad, in the nicest possible way - you are wrong.
lol sure. If they just start booking niche acts that barely anybody went to when they were booked, everything will be all better.
Ticket sales dropped 30k between 2015 and 2016. That doesn't happen in one year if the quality of the product is consistent.
Bonnaroo apologists like to pretend the fest had some long, slow decline due to factors out of its control. But that's just not what happened. It was chugging along, selling lots of tickets, then LiveNation came in and restructured the lineups, and it stopped selling lots of tickets. That's it. That's all there is to it.
You know there are people whose job it is to do market research. They send out feedback forms to consumers, go over the responses, ect. They did that research after last year to see what the problem was.
You notice how all of the things you and others like to complain about were not addressed? That is because what you like to complain about, is not an issue anywhere but on this message board and in your head.
I get it bro. They loaded up the lineup with their own cheap package tours so they could cut costs, sell significantly fewer tickets and still make a profit. This isn't some insider info that only you understand. But the fact that LiveNation can make a profit off this doesn't mean the product is as appealing to consumers as it used to be.
Launchpad, in the nicest possible way - you are wrong.
lol sure. If they just start booking niche acts that barely anybody went to when they were booked, everything will be all better.
I don't want to get into some long drawn out argument, LCD and the dead would done fine if paired with any roo undercard in the last five years. The flip was the lack of quality acts in the middle. Headliners don't fill hot ass multi-day music festivals.
I posted on here a month after the lineup was released that the goal they were shooting for was 70k. That was the goal, and it was 5k less than the average you keep bringing up. That should tell you that the market is just not the same as it used to be.
Lol. The're only going to sell 60k but since they were shooting for 70k, which is almost 75k, it's all good.
Getting back on topic. Launchpad, think you'll be hitting this Superjam or will you be doing Flume on the big stage?
You seem really concerned with what my plans are.
I was going to Roo and even had tickets to Sigur Ros the day after. But then a wedding I have to attend came up, so I had to cancel plans. I still think this lineup is pretty good and wish I were attending.
I will be sure to keep you up to date on my plans going forward.
Launchpad, in the nicest possible way - you are wrong.
lol sure. If they just start booking niche acts that barely anybody went to when they were booked, everything will be all better.
The niche acts were the reason that every single person in those small crowds attended Bonnaroo that year. The tons of ppl at the Cage the Elephant show didn't choose to go to Roo because of Cage. They would have been there anyways, and since they were there, they went to Cage. Cage didn't move tickets. Mackelmore didn't move tickets. People who were already at Roo to party saw those names and said "fuck it I know some of their songs, they are cool."
For a 12 year run, hardcore music fans choose to camp in the heat for 5 days to see specific bands that played a huge role in their lives. This was probably that 20,000 person difference that has been lost. The other 60,000 are people who were never lineup dependent.
I would hypothesize that, although Sigur Ros / Nick Cave seem like a waste of money, they actually aren't. If, on the 2014 lineup, you replaced Nick Cave, Damon Albarn, Bobby Womack, Darkside with Major Lazer, Glass Animals, Tove Lo, and Amine, you would lose more "hardcore music fan" tickets than you would gain casual molly muncher tickets. Because they already have what they need on the lineup and are less lineup dependent.
longer set times - i member tame getting said time and failing to execute, also not everyone is trying to play 3 hr sets, maybe that's more on the artist?
longer late nights - this is probably them, but you're still getting 5 extra hours, FIVE, than ACL (assuming all city fests are pretty similar, even DfN had to go indoors for their after midnight shows)
some variety in the lineup...which would include at least a couple legacy acts, some unique "gets" (like Atomic Bomb) or just some artists that aren't playing almost every other festival, artists that have been around for more than 5 years (most of the top line this year wasn't even around before 2010), and a couple metal bands would be cool - U2/RHCP have 65 yrs of being a band between them, I don't recall a bunch of other fests getting Kidjo's Remain in Light, Chance/Flume are the only post '10 in the top 6, no one else is getting U2, I also don't feel like Kiwanuka/Khruangbin/Klangstof are playing every fest under the sun, and yes I'm upset by the metal, I was also bummed at that last year.
some late night options that aren't EDM and can actually take advantage of being "late night" to put on a unique show - PTM (again sorry to keep picking on Tame but we got the same exact set as basically every other show theyve done last year)
a decent Thursday lineup - I personally really liked the Orwells before this was announced, Mondo, Goldfish, G Jones, Hippo, Twigs, Turkuaz, Welles is fine for Thursday, sure its not Glass Animals, but they're also a lot bigger now then they were 2 years ago.
Some electronic music that isn't cheesy trap/dubstep - Claude/Barc, Castles, Flume are not those things. Also we will for sure get to hear Jamie xx songs, while pitting U2.
A stronger hip-hop lineup with rappers that can actually you know....rap - yeah, i agree with this, but mainly because I think Chance is not supposed to be a top billed rapper. Flatbush is dank though, and they can rap.
and less boring pop acts that people aren't going to travel to Tennessee in the middle of June to see. - you mean just Lorde right? who else on this lineup is "pop"? Dua Lipa? No one's seeing her anyway likely.
1. U2, RHCP, and The Weeknd can definitely play for a longer amount of time than they were given. Umphrey's obviously was also screwed over. It'd be nice if Chance and Lorde had about 15 minutes added to their set times but that's a nitpick. But there's needlessly an hour in between every artist...why not give some of them an extra 15-30 min?
2. But Bonnaroo isn't a city festival...why not take full advantage of not having a curfew? Livenation budget cuts probably
3. That's pretty convenient you only used the top 6 as your argument because if you look right outside of that into the top 20 artists it's hard to find anyone who has been around for at least 10 years. In fact some person on reddit already compared the numbers from 2015 to 2016/2017 and you can see a significant difference. Their booking strategy has changed. Angeliqe Kidjo, Khruangbin, Klangstof, and Kiwanuka are great but it's not like those are the artists that'll get people to Bonnaroo. In fact, those sets will all probably have no more than a few hundred people.
4. Oh great we got ONE artist.
5. Okay whatever if you're excited about Thursday's lineup good for you. The only thing that truly excites me is The Orwells. Everything else will be just stuff that I'm checking out.
6. Flume is pretty cheesy. I mean it's not bad, but Flume is pretty mainstream EDM. Crystal Castles aren't at all what they used to be. So we got unique edm artist. We'll also get to hear Loud Places during The xx so that saves the EDM lineup
7. I did temporally forget about Flatbush and Skepta (WHO CONFLICT).
8. THE WHOLE LINEUP IS POP. Whether it's radio "indie" pop, some singer songwriter from Youtube that has a lot of views, pop EDM, party rap, almost this entire lineup is pop. But Lorde is awesome
Post by Launchpad McQuack on May 25, 2017 17:03:33 GMT -5
Delicious Meatball Sub I was thinking of hitting an Animals as Leaders concert tonight, but its pretty nasty out, so I think I am just going to chill at home instead. Just keeping you in the loop on what I am up to bud.
Post by Whereispassionpit on May 25, 2017 17:07:58 GMT -5
A single ticket with a camping pass costs $464.55 now, I feel like that doesn't get brought up enough. Bonnaroo used to have the biggest cult following of any festival in the US in my opinion, but I think many people that used to just go every year for the vibez and drugz can't even afford it anymore.
A single ticket with a camping pass costs $464.55 now, I feel like that doesn't get brought up enough. Bonnaroo used to have the biggest cult following of any festival in the US in my opinion, but I think many people that used to just go every year for the vibez and drugz can't even afford it anymore.
Actually those people grew up and make even more money now. Some of them still probably do drugs. Too bad these poor lineups chased them all away.
Getting back on topic. Launchpad, think you'll be hitting this Superjam or will you be doing Flume on the big stage?
You seem really concerned with what my plans are.
I was going to Roo and even had tickets to Sigur Ros the day after. But then a wedding I have to attend came up, so I had to cancel plans. I still think this lineup is pretty good and wish I were attending.
I will be sure to keep you up to date on my plans going forward.
Skip the wedding bro. They shoulda known better than to schedule it over Bonnaroo.
You just made such a big deal about how great the lineup was and how much fun you were gonna have and how all the haters were Wooks. Then you just suddenly got all quiet about it. No mention about an unexpected wedding that came up out of nowhere with only a few months notice. You'll have to forgive my suspicion. Mea culpa.
