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for the last 2 years I have arrived on Wednesday night and have been in the gate on that day, but in the GA campground. Does the VIP campground also open on wednesday? The VIP instructions say check in is at 10 am Thursday. Any VIPers get in the gate on wednesday last year?
This Thursday morning check-in has me pissed and our whole schedule screwed up. Seriously, I don't want to try and hunt down a hotel room and spend the money for Wednesday night. But I refuse to not get any sleep Wednesday night like we did last year - we paid for that all weekend with pure exhaustion. Our plan for months was to sleep in our tents on the farm Wednesday night. UGH.
Well, sure it's not their "fault", but we have an 11-plus-hour drive. Either we drive all day Wednesday and have to sleep somewhere or we drive all night Wednesday and get no sleep. The music starts at 6:00pm on Thursday. See?
Andrea, why don't you drive 8ish hours on Wednesday and stay the night somewhere ( hotel) and then finish the rest on Thursday? This way on Thursday you are all rested up for the weekend.
We are going to leave on Wednesday Night around 5PM and drive for 8ish hours, camp at a walmart and then finish the rest on Thursday.
Its not really the festivals fault that you planned on getting there a day early.
That's not the point. The gates have opened on Wednesday Night for the last 3 years. Anybody who has been to roo before knows this. Besides you didn't answer my question which leads me to believe you are not talking from experience.
TickTrix - I'm still coming wednesday, and will try to get in. If they deny me, I'm just going to park my RV in the Holiday Inn parking lot, and camp there til they let us in. I really don't see why they would let the GA in and NOT the VIP. That's kinda backwards. So I'm fairly confident we should make it in. I think they say that just to deter people from coming Wednesday.
Btw, it looks like I'm gonna have some extra space in the RV, too, so if there are any tenters there waiting with me, I'll be more than happy to let them come in and take a load off on the extra beds until the gates open! You are welcome to it if it worse comes to worse.
bug512 said:
Why not just arrive on Thursday?
b/c there is massive traffic on thursday and I'd prefer to avoid it. The one time I did come on thursday (1st year) I sat in 14 hours of traffic. Last year I sat in line with 2 cars ahead of me at the tollbooth for a total of 5 minutes, on Wednesday night.
This is a no brainer for me, I'll be in Manchester on wednesday night, just like in 04 and 05.
Thanks for the generous offer, Gouge. We may take you up on it. The girl I'm going with is out of town on business. I sent her an email this morning with the "news" about the check-in and our options. Once I hear back from her, hopefully we can figure out a plan. I'll post here once it's ironed out.
As much as I can talk myself into splitting up the drive Wednesday/Thursday and getting hotel for one last good sleep and a shower, the cost of a hotel was not in the budget. The fact that this has come up two weeks before launch is why I am upset. See, this is what happens when you change plans on a control freak (me).
Do you think the traffic will be that bad since: Years have passed so they should know what they are doing. VIP's have a seperate gate to get in...
I don't understand why the traffic is so bad....At NASCAR races tou can have up to 160,000 people (Bristol) and traffic gets in and out in the same day.. Even in Richmond everybody is out within 2 hours...And that track is in the middle of a town..
traffic has gotten better every year. I can attest to this. I have gone from 14 hours, to 6 hours, to 90 minutes, to 5 minutes, in that order from 2002-2005. However, I have attended enough concerts and sporting events to know that whenever you get 20,000 people together (let alone 80,000) there is going to be a traffic jam. There is nothing you can do to avoid that at events like this. The one thing you can do for yourself is be at the beginning of the jam and not the middle or tail end.
And you are mistaken, there are traffic jams at Nascar events, but one thing that happens with Nascar events like Taladega is that you have people arriving as early as Tuesday and Wednesday and as late as Sunday, so the crowd is dispersed over several days. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are BIG time Nascar fans and I hear alot about it. They are as obssessed with Nascar as I am with Concerts and Bonnaroo. :-)
I went VIP last year. We arrived at the Holiday Inn b/t 7-8 am Thurs morning, they were already up and running with distributing wristbands, etc. But they didn't open the Roo VIP gates until 10 am Thurs. So we got our RV in line (not sure how many were in front of us, but we were nearish the front -- maybe 3-4 dozen cars in front of us?), made friends with soon-to-be neighbors, and found that the line began to move right around 10. From there it probably took 30 min to get through security, into VIP, and to our actual campsite -- not a bad line wait at all, esp compared to non-VIP in years past. I don't know if it'll be the same this year, but this was my VIP experience last year. Hope it helps in decision-making.
That really helps... I was warned by pst VIP'ers that you couldn't actually get in before the printed time, but it's good to hear we could get wristbands taken care of. Early.
"Even in Richmond everybody is out within 2 hours" This is completely wrong. I have sat in the parking lot at that damn race for almost 4 hours. I will never go back to race again. Im from The 804 as well so i have been to my fair share of left hand turn derbys.
Gouge I am completely speaking from experience. They circle everyone through the hotel you hop out get your armband and stuff, they put the parking pass on your vehicle as you leave then you go line up and wait to get in. The reason they let GA in earlier is they have 78,000 people to worry about on that side and VIP has an exact amount of space for an exact amount of people they have no worries about overcrowding or problems there.
I went GA in 04, VIP last year, We stay Wed night in the KOA, bunch of folks are there, there is alot of tent space though I believe. Nice thing about the KOA is that you are off the interstate and right around the corner from the Holiday Inn for Checkin...we slept late, showed up at the Holiday around 10 am, no wait to check in, drove right in in like 30 minutes easy.
Me and the wife got a hotel across the street from Holiday Inn(where VIP checkin is) for WED night, get a good night sleep, shower,and prepare for the ROOOOOOOOOOOO
Andrea, why don't you drive 8ish hours on Wednesday and stay the night somewhere ( hotel) and then finish the rest on Thursday? This way on Thursday you are all rested up for the weekend.
We are going to leave on Wednesday Night around 5PM and drive for 8ish hours, camp at a walmart and then finish the rest on Thursday.
That's what we did, though with a shorter drive (8 hours from Durham, NC). We drove about 4-5 hours the night before, stopped at a hotel, then drove the rest of the way Thursday morning. That way, we got a good night's sleep, and broke up the driving. Sure, it's the expense of a hotel room, but what's another 70-80 bucks when you've already dropped $1200 on tickets?
VIP last year. Arrived late Wednesday night/wee hours of Thursday morning. bellakaybey has it right. No getting in anywhere until Thursday morning. I did the park/sleep in the Holiday Inn parking lot thing. Plenty of folks across the street at the Walmart, too. Trust me when I say that there was no advantage to arriving early on Wednesday. No entry. No armbands. Just a line to pick up armbands the following morning (moves at an achingly slow pace) and gates to the camp area opening around 10.
I remember a post in another section of the boards where people chimed in with how awful it was to get from the pick up at Holiday Inn to the camp, out of the hotel. Some got sent right, rather than left. There was no one directing traffic. They said that they would work on VIP armband distribution and traffic control for VIP this year. Hope that's the case. Ah. Here's the VIP traffic discussion thread: bonnaroo.proboards21.com/index.cgi?board=rides&action=display&thread=1198733068
Just a word of warning, too. Remember your parking pass when you go to check in for VIP!!! You had to have not only your ticket, but a parking pass in your group (at least one). No parking pass, no armband. One poor group went all the way back to Nashville, to get theirs, because they thought the tix were sufficient to check in and both parts of the group thought the other brought a pass.
Seriously, I don't want to try and hunt down a hotel room and spend the money for Wednesday night. But I refuse to not get any sleep Wednesday night like we did last year - we paid for that all weekend with pure exhaustion. Our plan for months was to sleep in our tents on the farm Wednesday night. UGH. 
