Large festivals like Lollapalooza, Rolling Loud, Bonnaroo and many others announced dates and lineups for the anticipated 2021 festival season. However, the season was at risk of interruption as COVID-19 regulations became stricter and inclement weather threatened festival grounds.
To the disappointment of many fans, Bonnaroo announced the cancellation of their festival just two days before it was set to begin. Hurricane Ida passed through Tennessee, where Bonnaroo is held, leading to severe flooding across the state.
The festival made an official announcement across social media platforms and in an email sent to its patrons. The festival stated, “We are heartbroken to announce that we must cancel Bonnaroo…We have done everything in our power to try to keep the show moving forward, but Mother Nature has dealt us a tremendous amount of rain over the past 24 hours, and we have run out of options to try to make the event happen safely and in a way that lives up to the Bonnaroo experience.” This announcement came shortly after the festival stated they reduced the number of people who could camp on their grounds while also watching Hurricane Ida.
Twitter user @TheFestiveOwl kept their followers and other Twitter users up to date on their page with information about the state of the grounds and information passed down to them. A series of videos and images were posted to the account showing how Hurricane Ida affected the site of the festival. The Twitter user @TheFestiveOwl tweeted, “As bad as the cancellation is…it simply wasn’t going to be possible with 80,000 people.”
Another group that was strongly affected by the festival’s cancellation included the people who volunteer to assemble the festival with the promise of admission. The grounds continued to be assembled up until the cancellation announcement was made, leaving volunteers stuck at the grounds struggling to get out and no public announcement of how they could expect to be compensated. Cars had to be towed off of the grounds due to the mud preventing them from leaving.
This is now the second year in a row that Bonnaroo has been canceled. In 2020, the festival was initially pushed back three months in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in June 2020, it was announced that the festival was canceled altogether since the state of coronavirus has not significantly improved. During the initial cancellation of Bonnaroo in 2020, there was an option to roll over purchased tickets to the new 2021 dates. This is not an option that has been laid out for the cancellation this year. Refunds were offered at the time of the 2020 cancellation, but Bonnaroo has informed patrons that refunds will be issued to all that purchased a ticket.
The festival has not announced plans for a reschedule, but they have made a promising statement that they will “see you on the farm in June 2022.”
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