My thoughts

Attended my first roo this year, here’s my thoughts: I like to think I’m an experienced festival/concert goer, but I was really nervous going into Roo. I knew it was a different beast, and prepared for it accordingly. Brought Ryobi fans, canopies, cots, the whole 9.

Key takeaways: Friendliest people I’ve ever encountered at shows, highest energy with most amount of people dancing at shows, an insane amount of stuff to do aside from catching performances, and the shower/bathroom situation was actually not that bad aside from shower wait times. Decent enough food (shoutout roti rolls❤️), friendly employees aside from a few. Lineup was amazing, I saw so many artists that I’d been wanting to see, danced like no one was watching and forgot about all my problems for 5 days.

I loved the crowd at Roo, it absolutely made the entire experience for me. Parcels, Four Tet, T-Pain, Khruangbin, Teskey Bros; all of you wonderful people in the crowd dancing and passing snacks/kandi/water around just made my heart jump w joy. I live in Austin so I go to ACL pretty much every year, and you barely see any of that energy at ACL. It was truly beautiful to see

Now to the fun part: I’m so excited to leave this sub and not come back for a long, long time (unless that 2025 lineup bangs). I’ve gone to ACL, Lolla, Coachella, and now Roo. No fest has a more toxic subreddit than Bonnaroo. For a festival that prides itself on “radiating positivity” so many of y’all just sound like bitter olds. It’s just full of adults crying with unrealistic expectations. When y’all stop expecting Bonnaroo to be this selfishly perfect magical experience for yourselves, maybe you’ll have a good time again.

I’ve been amazed at the amount of posts I’ve seen since deciding to buy tickets just absolutely shitting on the Fred Again headliner decision, the lineup in general, it’s just mind-numbingly annoying. You all will say “bonnaroo is so much more than the lineup” then in the same breath cry cause your favorite band that can barely fill up a pavilion in 2025 doesn’t get booked on the lineup. Be realistic with yourselves.

Don’t get me started on the absolute toxic mentality when it comes to single-day pass holders or people who don’t camp, as if you are somehow a greater person for suffering in worse conditions than they’re willing to put up with. I can somewhat understand wanting everyone to be on the same “terms” but man some people just genuinely can’t get the days off or they know their limits, know that the heat would get to them, and can’t undertake the full experience. At least they don’t get online and bitch and moan about the conditions.

Side rant: I can’t understand how someone overheating is the festivals fault, should they have better medical attention? I’m not sure, I’m not a paramedic or festival planner. But to me, if you’re overheating at a music festival.. you didn’t think your decision through. You’re not tough enough to endure Roo, and that’s okay. Just don’t be mad at the festival for your failure to prepare. There’s plenty of ways to beat the heat at Roo. To those who hydrated the week before, and had been working out/walking in the heat, we were ready. I mean… some people ran a fucking marathon and were just fine.. it’s on you. The amount of “it’s so hot outside why doesn’t Bonnaroo do _____” like shit I mean it’s a fest in June on a farm in TN… what did you expect 😭

I’m sure I’ll get downvoted to all hell, but man.. it’s just strange to see a group of people so hell bent on promoting “the bonnaroovian code” but only when it seems fit to them. I’m extremely thankful and grateful that Bonnaroo is nothing like its correlating sub.

Some of you, not all by no means, need to touch grass and realize the festival wasn’t made for JUST you

All that to say… I most definitely will be back, Roo is too good to only do once ✨