Bonnaroo cancellation prompts social media backlash, petition for 100% refunds
On the heels of Bonnaroo's mid-festival cancelation due to weather and the flooded site conditions it created, the fallout continues to be a hot debate on social media.
Bonnaroo posted on its official Instagram account thanking Bonnaroovians and the Bonnaroo team.
"Last weekend did not go according to plan but together we got through it," the post read. "Know that we are listening and reading every single comment. Bonnaroo is not a weekend on a farm in Tennessee — it's all of you. We love you."
But many comments to that post were less than favorable, citing issues ranging from the refund policy, to drainage issues at the festival site to ultimately — trust.
One post read: "Together we got through it?? There was zero togetherness between Roo staff and attendees. WE did that s***. WE pushed cars out of the mud. WE took care of each other. WE kept the Roo spirit alive in Nashville. Y'all did absolutely f***ing NOTHING to help us after the announcement."
A petition has been started at change.org by Kaitlyn Ziegler, calling on Live Nation, the festival's promoter, to issue 100% refunds for the cancelation instead of the 75% refunds that were promised.
"This year's Bonnaroo music festival, owned and managed by Live Nation, was nothing short of disappointing for thousands of attendees," the petition reads. "Many festival-goers faced unexpected challenges, including extreme weather conditions, poor organization, and subpar facilities. These issues rendered the festival experience exhausting and unrewarding, contrary to what was promised when tickets were purchased."
Refunds: When will Bonnaroo refunds be issued? How much can attendees expect after cancellation
Reactions: Heartbroken at Bonnaroo: Artists, fans react to abrupt cancellation, 'this was gonna be a special one'
More than 4,000 people had signed the petition by the afternoon of Tuesday, June 17.
One person named Brian commented on the petition saying the festival needed to be canceled and he was glad they did, but a 75% refund is "a laugh in the face" at the hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in food, supplies, and traveling expenses festival-goers spent.
"I understand that throwing a festival this massive requires a great amount of logistics to function properly, and I also understand that cost a lot of money for Live Nation too," Brian's post read. "However, Live Nation is a large and powerful company. They have the capability of organizing a proper response protocol to storms, yet they choose not to do so. We have had over two decades of magic on the farm. Let's not ruin the community we've built by being greedy."
The Tennessean reached out to Bonnaroo's organizers and will update this story if they return our requests for comments.
Melonee Hurt covers music and music business at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee. Reach Melonee at mhurt@tennessean.com or on Instagram at @MelHurtWrites.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Bonnaroo cancellation prompts backlash, petition for 100% refunds
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
12 minutes ago
- New York Times
Andrew Schulz, ‘Podcast Bro,' Might Be America's Foremost Political Journalist
The comedian Andrew Schulz has risen to arena-headliner status on the strength of his irreverent, defiantly anti-woke standup. His material is a high-energy blend of gleeful raunch and precise observation, all peppered with ethnic jokes, slurs and smack talk. (Which, as much as such a thing is possible, generally comes across as good-hearted or, at least, not meanspirited.) But provocation is not the only trick in his bag. In Schulz's most recent special, 'Life,' which came out on Netflix this year, the 41-year-old moved into more vulnerable and narratively driven territory. It's about his and his wife's experience with I.V.F. (told in highly un-family-friendly language). Despite all his success with standup, Schulz has perhaps become even better known for his podcasting. His shows 'Flagrant,' co-hosted by Akaash Singh, and 'Brilliant Idiots,' co-hosted by Charlamagne tha God, are appointment listening for millions, not just for humor but for political discussion too. That relatively newfound breadth and Schulz's ready embrace of disparate subject matter — from politics to sports to theology to culture writ large — has led to him becoming a star of the so-called online manosphere. Although that term, or 'podcast bro,' or any other potentially reductive label one might apply, would most likely frustrate the entertainingly pugnacious Schulz. But whatever you want to call him or his corner of the online world, it's influential. Donald Trump went on 'Flagrant' last fall ahead of the presidential election, and progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg have been guests on the show this year. For me, that raised questions about what Schulz's bigger goals are, and what responsibilities might come with his growing influence. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio App In the last four or five years, you've really blown up. What has shifted in the culture to enable you to come to prominence? When I started posting stuff on the internet, specifically standup, things changed for me. I was trying to get an HBO special or, back in the day, Netflix is just coming to prominence, or Comedy Central. I was trying to get anything, and I couldn't get any motion with standup. So out of desperation, I filmed my own special, pitched it to everybody, nobody wanted it, and I was like, I'm going to put this online. At the time there was a sensitivity, especially in corporate America, about edginess and jokes. So my gamble was maybe if I put this out on YouTube, there will be an audience that likes this type of comedy. I put it out, and a weird thing happened: Everybody only watched 20 minutes. So I put out a 20-minute version of it, and the next weekend, I sold out a comedy club. The next weekend I sold out another one. I was like, Whoa, there's really something over here on the internet, and I can be my authentic self with comedy despite what the cultural sensitivity of the time is. You obviously have clear ideas about what works with audiences. Does that create a temptation to pander? If you actually are trying to create something authentic, you're going to make less money, but you maintain your integrity. Oftentimes what happens is you'll have an opinion that's maybe a little different, and you'll be rebuked for that opinion for years, and then people will start to come around. Then the same people that rebuked you will start echoing those sentiments with no accountability. We had Bernie on the pod, who I love. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
28 minutes ago
- Washington Post
In its third season, ‘The Gilded Age' is as staid and sudsy as ever
'The Gilded Age,' by virtue of its focus on moneyed late-19th-century decorum, is the current HBO drama that hews most closely to network broadcast standards. Indeed, the show was originally tipped for NBC before it got a Bertha Russell-approved status glow-up to the premium cable streamer. But while it eschews the brutality of HBO's reputation-burnishing series such as 'The Sopranos' or 'Game of Thrones,' it induces similar ethical cartwheels in the viewer. We're invited to cheer the victories of an amoral robber baron and his Machiavellian wife, whose campaign to conquer the old-money battlements of 1880s New York forms the overarching narrative of the series.
New York Times
28 minutes ago
- New York Times
Jay Ellis Considers Colson Whitehead His Literary GOAT
So far this year, Jay Ellis has played a basketball coach in the Netflix comedy 'Running Point' and a record-setting M.V.P. in the action movie 'Freaky Tales.' This summer, he's swapping free throws for freestyles as he steps into the role of a hip-hop star in the Off Broadway play 'Duke & Roya,' at the Lucille Lortel Theater. The drama finds him stumbling into a cross-cultural romance with life-threatening consequences. 'At first glance,' he said, 'there's no reason why you think these two people would ever hit it off.' He added: 'We're in a world where everyone yells, no one listens. Everybody really just wants connection, to be seen, to be understood, and I just loved the idea that these two characters do.' Ellis, 43, temporarily relocated his family of four to New York from their home in Los Angeles. One particular aspect of the local culture suits him well. 'I absolutely love pizza,' he said, name-dropping his latest find, Fini. 'My daughter took a bite and was like, 'Why don't we have pizza like this in L.A., Daddy?'' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
