Bonnaroo changed America. Knoxville's Ashley Capps on how it came together: 'We taught ourselves'

A church group? Really? That's who accompanied my father and his teenage friends to New York in 1969 for what would become known for decades as the quintessential American music festival: Woodstock. Much like him, I had no idea what I was getting into when I heard some 42 years later Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival had been attempting something similar on a farm in Manchester, Tennessee, under the leadership of Knoxville native Ashley Capps. – Ryan Wilusz, Knox News

Ashley Capps: You’re telling me that’s the same guy? The Knoxville native who books Big Ears Festival across lavish theaters in his hometown also created one of the most iconic American music festivals, where tens of thousands of people gather to get freaky in a field each June?

For the 69-year-old promoter, the contrast is not so stark.

“There is a diversity to both festivals that I think is consistent between them. ... We’re not in a field. We're not a camping festival,” Capps said when comparing Big Ears to Bonnaroo. “But in some ways, to me they’re not that different from one another."

Today, festivals struggle to achieve diversity, as promoter after promoter has examined and tried to replicate in some way what made Bonnaroo successful in pioneering the European camping festival experience in the States.

With Capps no longer at the helm of Bonnaroo – and with his longtime AC Entertainment promotion business now owned by Live Nation – the festival landscape he helped to forge is at a turning point again as festivals struggle to achieve what Bonnaroo did in part by being first: finding a way to set themselves apart.

But surely there's more to Bonnaroo's story than right person, right place, right time.

I recently stopped by Capps' office in downtown Knoxville with two questions in mind: How did you do it, really, and what can other festivals take away from Bonnaroo's long-running success?

Here's what I learned.

Ashley Capps was inspired by European festivals when conceiving Bonnaroo

My mother is a saint. With me and my 16-year-old classmate as her muscle, she drove the night before Bonnaroo 2011 to a random gas station to meet a stranger with an extra ticket to sell.  A moody teenager (that would be me) had made it clear that showing up to the festival with just his mom would be far too lame, and my friend needed a ticket. But as the three of us piled in a minivan loaned by her coworker and embarked over the North Carolina mountains on a six-hour trip to “The Farm,” some anxiety began to sink in as I contemplated just how different this live music experience would be. – Ryan Wilusz, Knox News

Most of the summer concerts I had attended prior to 2011 had been held at amphitheaters, the same way many Americans experienced live music.

“It’s hard to say why the amphitheater circuit developed the way that it did," Capps told Knox News. "But because it did, I think a lot of the traditional promoters did not have a lot of incentive to operate outside of that traditional touring network that was going to amphitheaters in the summer."

As a promoter and owner of AC Entertainment, Capps began thinking outside the box in the 1990s, having already spent quite a bit of time in Europe discovering how festivals were organized across the Atlantic.

His question: “Why not in the States?”

Festivals were happening here, of course, but many were stop and start. American bluegrass music had a festival presence, and fans who gather under the loose label of “jam band” music had shown a willingness to travel for shows knowing each improvisational set would be unique.

Capps’ wheels were turning.

Knoxville concert series a 'microcosm' of Bonnaroo music festival

Shortly after we arrived at Bonnaroo, set up camp and realized real bathrooms were not a thing, it became clear my mother was glad I had company. While she was more concerned with finding some peace, quiet and shade, we teenagers were eager to explore from sun up to sun up (there’s not much sleeping at Bonnaroo). She agreed to let us leave camp and set out on our own. – Ryan Wilusz, Knox News

Capps left his hometown and set out for Manchester, Tennessee, to scout property after construction on the Knoxville Convention Center turned the grounds he used for Hot Summer Nights into a staging area.

Though he didn’t know it at the time, this Knoxville concert series that brought artists like Widespread Panic and Willie Nelson to World’s Fair Park between 1992 and 1999 taught him the basics for bringing Bonnaroo – a reference to a 1974 Dr. John album – to life.

“We taught ourselves how to do concerts outdoors in a park that basically had no infrastructure,” Capps said. “So, we had to bring in the stages, and we had to set everything up, including the boundaries around the park so that we could sell tickets. In a sense, in a microcosm, it became what we ended up doing as a festival.”

Though Bonnaroo and its venue, “The Farm,” are now synonymous, Capps and his partners with New Orleans production company Superfly weren’t the first ones to attempt a festival on the property.

Ever heard of the Itchycoo Park festival? Yeah, me neither.

How internet messages changed the festival landscape for music fans

My first impression of The Farm: It felt more like a sea, formed by waves and waves of people that turn Manchester into one of Tennessee's most populous cities each year.  The grounds can be intimidating to navigate, but if you are determined like I was as a teen, you can find yourself front row for some of the most epic performances your mind can imagine.  If you dig deep enough, you might even find a video of me crying at the beauty of the swelling sea of voices singing along to “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire, my first taste of a Bonnaroo headliner. – Ryan Wilusz, Knox News

Capps’ vision for the inaugural 2002 festival was much bigger than Itchycoo, but not quite as big as what Bonnaroo ended up becoming in its first year: 60,000 tickets sold directly from organizers over the course of about 10 days with no true advertising.

An additional 10,000 tickets were sold later, and who knows how many other people found their way in.

“This is when we realized that people were actually talking to each other on the internet, you know, what they now call peer-to-peer marketing,” Capps said. “We stumbled into that by accident. That was another thing though about the jam bands. They had really pioneered using the internet to talk to their fans.”

Let’s set the record straight: Bonnaroo is not a jam band festival. Was it at some point? Eh … maybe. But artists like David Byrne, DJ Z-Trip, Patti Smith, The Black Keys and Sonic Youth had all played the festival by the end of year three.

Notice any Big Ears crossovers?

Still, the heavy “jam” presence on the initial lineups and the hippie culture that came with it led to some comparisons between Bonnaroo and ? you guessed it ? Woodstock ’69.

“We were very flattered by that comparison,” Capps said. “Because for us, Woodstock was this incredible inspiration, regardless of some of the harsh realities of how difficult it was from a traffic standpoint and from a logistical standpoint and a services standpoint.”

Right people, clear plans for Bonnaroo built trust in Manchester

Sunscreen, tickets, tent, water. Those are the basics you need to survive and just about all we brought to Bonnaroo 2011. You learn from your mistakes, though, so here are some tips: Pack earplugs for sleeping, a gadget for charging electronics and a sweatshirt because, yes, it gets cold at night. But even if you’re Bonnaroo bound, it’s not too late. The local Walmart has become an unofficial gathering place for festivalgoers picking up last-minute supplies before the gates open each day. And if it's tickets you forgot, someone at will-call – typically located at the local high school – should be able to help. – Ryan Wilusz, Knox News

From the beginning, Capps said, Bonnaroo organizers were meeting with community members and other stakeholders to explain exactly what they envisioned for the festival.

“That was a very important step," he said. "Because of all of that, I believe we developed relationships and a trust within the community that was invaluable as we navigated the next few years. Because it really took years for it to really get dialed in the way that it needed to be.”

The community was still skeptical, of course. After all, Itchycoo didn't work out, and that festival had Iron Butterfly. In a way, Capps feels the skepticism helped Bonnaroo in the long run. Like, "Look, we did it!"

It's a lot easier when you surround yourself with the right people. Rock festivals that were happening at more traditional venues often used normal concert teams to handle large-scale events, Capps said. Bonnaroo, on the other hand, brought in a team that cut its teeth parking cars for massive NASCAR races across the country.

With Phish on hiatus, the crew that had produced some of the band's festivals was available to help Capps, and Bonnaroo's project manager brought invaluable experience in logistics and construction from his background building skyscrapers in Chicago.

"Even then, we didn't get it right the first year," Capps said. "There was incredible traffic backed up on the interstate going in both directions. There was a lot to be learned and a lot to be figured out."

Driving from Murfreesboro to Manchester on I-24, typically a 30-minute trip, took some festivalgoers between five and 10 hours the first year, according to The Tennessean.

"But I think because of how we approached the community to begin with, instead of everybody freaking out and throwing up their hands and saying 'never again,' everyone was like, 'Oh, OK, next year we'll do it this way,'" Capps said.

Sense of place important for summer music festivals trying to stand out

With a break between sets, I took a dip in the mushroom fountain, a picture beneath the Bonnaroo arch, a ride on the Ferris wheel and a refreshing breath of cold air inside the air-conditioned cinema tent before checking the time on a towering cuckoo clock. – Ryan Wilusz, Knox News

Bonnaroo has a sense of place. It's one of the main reasons the festival has been able to survive in what's become a saturated summer festival landscape.

"Bonnaroo was a special place and a special time in Tennessee, and it was not something that we wanted to see franchised or something like that," Capps said. "We wanted to really nurture that experience in Manchester, Tennessee, and not try to directly replicate it any place else."

AC Entertainment and Superfly Productions branched off and created Vegoose, a non-camping Las Vegas festival held between 2005 and 2007. Capps' company also got involved in Louisville's Forecastle Festival and launched others across the Southeast, which further positioned the company as a household name for festivalgoers.

Festivals were becoming more prominent in the years after Bonnaroo's launch, Capps said, and AC Entertainment played a role. But it took a long time for Bonnaroo to feel any real competition because of the holistic experience it provided.

"The challenge became when everything started to look similar," Capps said. "People are booking the same acts and trying to do the same thing that it started becoming challenging. You realize it's a lot easier to sit in your hotel room and go to the show all day than it is to come to Bonnaroo. So, we did start trying to protect ourselves a little bit from that by trying to put in radius agreements for the artists.

"It never really impacted us very dramatically, though."

Between May 2024 and May 2025, more than 500 music festivals are scheduled in the United States, according to musicfestivalwizard.com. Artists often include festival stops when announcing tours and, depending on their popularity, there could be multiple stops.

Corporate festival organizers have the resources ? financial and otherwise ? to form relationships with top-tier talent while recruiting them to perform across multiple events they are producing. Post Malone is a draw all over the world, for example, so why not put him on multiple festival bills?

(For what it's worth, Post Malone is set to perform at Bonnaroo, Governors Ball and Outside Lands between now and August.)

The sheer volume of festivals being produced these days can be overwhelming, Capps said. That's problematic when festivals are booked as passion projects by fans, who don't always have the expertise, resources or bandwidth to pull off what people might expect with a Bonnaroo.

"It does seem to be shaking down a little bit. There's a lot of cancellations out there," Capps said. "It's hard to say what the future holds, but it's a difficult landscape. I would not want to be trying to launch Bonnaroo in 2024, let's put it that way. Bonnaroo is well established at this particular point, so it's very insulated. ... But to try to do it from scratch right now? No thanks."

Live Nation plays a major role in American summer music festivals

Burned, blistered and craving a home-cooked meal, I returned from Bonnaroo 2011 as an advocate for the festival, making a pact with myself to attend every chance I could. Just as I placed my camping gear in the trunk and prepared to hit the road 10 years later and with seven Bonnaroos under my belt, I got a notification the festival was canceled for a second year in a row, this time due to rain. The 2020 festival that never happened due to COVID-19 had signaled to fans a Bonnaroo resurgence was happening following a few years of what some considered lackluster lineups. I returned in 2022 but without my normal crew, as the friends I tried convincing could not get past what they considered generic booking compared to what could have been. – Ryan Wilusz, Knox News

Many festivals popping up these days target the "sweet spot" ? somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000 people, Capps said. The bigger an event gets, the tougher the logistics become, and too many budding festival organizers expect a glamorous payoff without conducting enough research on the front end.

"A lot of people unfortunately feel like it's a lot easier than it is and, unfortunately, have to pay the price of that because it's a very expensive endeavor," Capps said. "There has always been something about the music business that attracts people. ... It's seen as an opportunity to be creative and do something and take a risk and accept a challenge and try to do something amazing. But it can burn you really bad."

These days, Live Nation just might be waiting in the wings to bail organizers out. The global entertainment giant in recent years has acquired major stakes in some of the country's biggest festivals, which can help organizers when it comes to ticket management and other responsibilities that require large sums of cash.

Bonnaroo, despite all its success, took this route as Capps began distancing himself from the festival in 2015, around the same time Live Nation acquired a controlling interest. Live Nation purchased a controlling interest of AC Entertainment the following year before acquiring it all in 2020, a year that turned the live music world upside down amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The corporate landscape ... provides a home for people who have that expertise and jobs and a lot of work for them to do," Capps said. "The more work they do, the more expertise they develop. And so, there's a positive side to it in creating an infrastructure that makes things possible."

But Live Nation's involvement also can be problematic, as festivalgoers who loathe corporate America's involvement in the arts blame the company for homogenous lineups across multiple festivals and increased ticket prices, especially when certain tickets come with added fees and experiences not available to general admission attendees.

"As companies get larger and larger and larger, there is always a tendency to standardize things in a way that's not always productive, especially when it comes to creating something that is new and exciting and breaks the mold," Capps said. "Generally speaking, corporations are not set up to break the mold."

This can cause some conflict between business minds and creative minds, who "do not want to be hemmed in by ... a standardized or cookie-cutter approach to things," Capps said.

All you need to do is browse the social media comments or search on Reddit to find Bonnaroo loyalists who feel the sale to Live Nation marked the beginning of the festival's "decline," though the annual event has added more and more fan amenities under Live Nation.

Perhaps most important were the real bathrooms added in 2016. Bonnaroo began placing more emphasis on the campgrounds two years later and added the shaded "Where in the Woods" stage in 2019, along with a tram system and additional arts experiences beyond the main festival grounds.

More from Ryan Wilusz: My love for Bonnaroo has radiated positivity in so many ways

The formula for a successful music festival? That's the wrong question

As I prepare in 2024 for what could be my 10th and final trip to The Farm before starting a family, I wonder if my child will one day view my festival days as fondly as I think about my father at Woodstock. Will Bonnaroo still be around? Will people even care about live music in the same way? Music, art and fashion trends all seem to happen in cycles. What's outdated now might come back in style, and what's popular might not work in the future. I'm looking at you, Woodstock '99. But in the meantime, I'll continue to view Bonnaroo as many people do: a one-of-a-kind musical reset from the real world. – Ryan Wilusz, Knox News

It has been more than 20 years since the first Bonnaroo, and the event is still going strong as a destination and cornerstone of the summer music festival season.

As other festivals fold or scale back, Capps' springtime Big Ears Festival seems to earn more attention and respect each year from music fans and outlets like Spin, which named it the 2023 music festival of the year.

And while some festivals are looking to recreate elements of what has made Bonnaroo successful, Capps is again leading the way among peer promoters, in part by operating Big Ears as a nonprofit and booking the event without artists' mainstream popularity in mind.

What's most important to Capps with Big Ears is the diversity of programming and the overall festival experience, which in Knoxville means walkability between venues and a small-town-big-city environment that drops people from all over the world into a welcoming community along the Tennessee River.

Perhaps the formula for success is not a formula at all. Just be different.

"I think generally when people imitate, it's not as successful as the thing that's being imitated," Capps said. "So, I think the real takeaway from Bonnaroo is creating your own unique and fresh experience that stands apart from all of the others."

But if it's a formula you're looking for, the Bonnaroovian Code designed for festivalgoers might not be a bad place to start: Prepare thyself, radiate positivity, respect the venue, play as a team, don't be that person and stay true.

Ryan Wilusz is a downtown growth and development reporter. Phone 865-317-5138. Email [email protected]. Instagram @knoxscruff.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Bonnaroo brought camping music festivals to America. Meet the founder