[UPDATE 8/31/21, 5:00 p.m. ET]: Bonnaroo 2021 has officially been canceled by organizers due to waterlogged conditions on the festival grounds. Find more information and read a full statement on the cancellation here.
[8/30/21]: On Monday evening, as Tennessee braced for the potential effects of Tropical Depression Ida, Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival announced that it was reducing camping capacity for its 2021 event this week. A refund request window is open now and will end this evening, Tuesday, August 31st, 2021 at 8:00 p.m. CT.
As the announcement notes,
Due to the expectation of significant rain on The Farm from Hurricane Ida, and the knowledge that areas of our campgrounds will be rendered unusable, Mother Nature has forced us to reduce our camping capacity. We are offering a refund window so Bonnaroovians who no longer wish to attend can request full refunds across all ticket and accommodation types.
The Bonnaroo Team is working around the clock and, just like you, watching the storm very closely. We will provide additional updates as soon as possible! There are low areas of The Farm that may be severely impacted by the rain. In order to ensure a safe & orderly Bonnaroo, we need to watch the storm overnight and evaluate the grounds tomorrow [Tuesday] afternoon. Stay positive!!
The announcement of the reduced camping capacity at Bonnaroo followed a prior notice on Sunday that the campgrounds would not open as planned on Tuesday to allow event organizers to assess the storm’s effects on the festival grounds. The box office will remain open on Tuesday despite the delayed opening of the campgrounds.
As of publication time, Ida has been reduced from “hurricane” to “tropical depression” classification. Stay tuned for updates from the Bonnaroo Farm in Manchester, TN, where rain is expected to continue to fall throughout the day on Tuesday.
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The uncertainty caused by the storm is far from the first impediment to this latest edition of Bonnaroo. The popular festival followed a quintessentially “2020” timeline last year. On January 7th, 2020, Bonnaroo announced its 2020 event, set to take place on June 11th–14th. Then, on March 18th, as the scope of the coronavirus’ inevitable effects on the live events industry suddenly became quite apparent, Bonnaroo organizers postponed the 2020 event to late September of 2020—a common reaction from large-scale, early-summer festivals at that time.
Related: Bonnaroo Adjusts 2021 Lineup: Khruangbin & RÜFÜS DU SOL Added, King Gizzard Cut, More
However, as the scope of the pandemic worsened in the U.S. in late June, the Bonnaroo team made the call to throw in the towel on 2020 and instead look toward next year, pushing the postponed September dates back to June 17th–20th, 2021. Finally, in September 2020, the festival once again pushed its dates to Labor Day Weekend 2020 (September 2nd–5th).
The festival also instituted various COVID-19 safety protocols for this weekend’s event including required proof of full vaccination and/or a recent negative test.
For more updates, follow Bonnaroo on social media.
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