Goodstone: When we were brainstorming names, we started flipping through old records and came across Desitively Bonnaroo, by Dr. John. We looked up bonnaroo and found out it was Creole slang for good stuff.
Mayers: We raised money from Coran Capshaw, who manages the Dave Matthews Band, and found a site in Manchester, Tennessee. It was a 700-acre farm with all these access roads left over from a festival of retro acts that had flopped a few years earlier. The place had a great vibe. It was right off the highway. The backstage road led to a Holiday Inn. We negotiated a deal on the spot.
Farman: We partnered with AC Entertainment, a well-known promoter in Tennessee, and started signing groups popular with the jam audience, like Widespread Panic and the String Cheese Incident. Before they went on hiatus, Phish had done a bunch of festivals. They set us up with their production manager and design director.
Mayers: We were going to go with Ticketmaster but thought, Let's try selling tickets through our website. With one e-mail blast, we sold 10,000 tickets the first day and 70,000 in two weeks. We priced them at $100 initially and raised the price to $175 as we got closer to the date.
Farman: Before the festival, we sat down with the local police and municipal officials. We said, "There's going to be a lot of people coming. The traffic will be backed up for 20 miles." They were like, "Yeah, right," because their only experience was that failed event four years before. And we hadn't advertised at all. Not a single poster. We met with them again the Monday after the festival. A lieutenant from the state troopers' office pulled a very stern face on us and said, "I told you you weren't going to be backing up my interstate for 20 miles. It was only 19." Then he cracked up. We learned whenever you do something that's going to impact the community, you have to tell it like it is. We've had a great relationship with the community since. We contribute $20 million to the economy every year.
Mayers: We've sold out almost every year since 2002, and every year it's been profitable. We've expanded beyond jam bands to indie rock, jazz, bluegrass, reggae, hip-hop. There's a cinema tent, a comedy tent, a brewers' village. But people don't just come for the entertainment. It's like this pure, in-the-moment experience. There's nothing like the total immersion of living there. You meet new neighbors and make new friends. Some of the sweetest experiences take place after the music is over, at 3 or 4 a.m. You're hanging out, and somebody picks up a guitar.
Goodstone: We're not just programming music. We're programming some of the most memorable moments of their lives.
Farman: We wanted to grow by creating other events in different formats. Our first was a festival called Vegoose in Las Vegas on Halloween 2005. Vegoose did great the first year and pretty well the next two. But then the economy turned south, so we ended it. In 2008, we produced the first Outside Lands festival, one of the biggest events ever in Golden Gate Park. It shows off the great things San Francisco has to offer: food, wine, a healthy lifestyle. Outside Lands's audience skews more local than Bonnaroo's and a little older: around 25 to 45. It's given us ideas for ways to expand the brand beyond entertainment into areas like food and wine.
Goodstone: We've always signed up corporate sponsors for Bonnaroo. But it's been challenging, because our demographic—18 to 34—is turned off by traditional marketing. In the early days, big companies would ask us how much it would cost to put up this many banners or get a stage named after them. That felt way too artificial. Instead, we wanted to design branded experiences that would make the festival better for the audience. For example, we worked with Garnier Fructis to establish a salon on-site where people can get their hair washed and styled. We do this thing called the Silent Disco, where a DJ wirelessly transmits music directly to headphones we give out. No one else can hear it. So people walk by, and they see a giant dance party taking place in absolute silence. Originally, a headphone manufacturer sponsored that; for the past two years, it's been VitaminWater. We launched a separate marketing division, because companies kept approaching us for help reaching Millennials outside the festival. Our customers are companies like Nestlé, Sony, and State Farm that want campaigns with an entertainment element. We did the Live from T5 concert series for JetBlue in its terminal at JFK. You're waiting to board a plane and—oh, look!—Sarah McLachlan or Taylor Swift is giving a free concert!
Farman: We can't believe we do this for a living. We're music lovers who get to meet all our favorite artists in person and see them perform live.
Black: And we've got a great collection of concert posters.
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