From Rockets to Rock Stars (Page 1 of 5)

Nine days before Bonnaroo begins, a blinking, electric highway sign greets westbound Interstate 24 motorists with the message “Bonnaroo traffic, expect delays. Consider alternate routes.” A sign in front of J J Music on U.S. Highway 41 reads “Welcome Bonnaroo!” 

In the early morning sunlight, the town of Manchester is already wide-awake. Local liquor stores have their “Open” signs lit, even at 8 a.m. The line at the town’s beloved new Starbucks drive-thru wraps around the corner of the building. Several moms read magazines and look on as their children are instructed at swim classes at the county’s regional recreation center. Vacation Bible School kids run a frenzied game on the lawn of the First Baptist Church.

Roughly two miles away, workers and volunteers have been out on an 800-acre farm property since early May, getting the fields ready for 80,000 music enthusiasts that will flock into Coffee County June 14 through 17 for the Bonnaroo music and arts festival. The town of roughly 10,000 people is teeming with pre-festival preparation and anticipation of the revelers who increase the population eight-fold as they come to enjoy four days of music, food, relaxation and true Southern hospitality.

“There’s no place like home.”

At the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, they’ve fielded several hundred calls from people looking for Bonnaroo tickets in the past few days. “We're just a small little growing town, and Bonnaroo has put us on the map,” says Susie McEacharn, the Chamber’s executive director. “Every state in the country and I think 26 different countries come, like China, Japan, Germany and England … Growing up, we never imagined having bands like the Police and Tom Petty play in our backyard,” she says.

Bonnaroo — Creole slang meaning “a really good time”— was started in 2002 by Superfly Productions Presents of Lousiana and Knoxville’s own A.C. Entertainment.

The festival found its way to Manchester after another music event, Itchycoo Park, went belly-up after just one festival featuring Styx, Steppenwolf, Starship and Iron Butterfly. “It was the same kind of event concept, but there was a person who had lesser resources and experience in concert promotion, and his big fallacy was he got the wrong kinds of bands,” explains Roger Dotson, owner of the local radio station Fantasy 101.5 FM.

But that flop put Manchester into the arena of properties that Superfly and A.C. were considering for the southeast music festival they hoped to host.  “We’d talked about doing projects together so we started looking at sites and doing research,” says Ashley Capps, head of A.C. Entertainment. “An event like this in the Southeast made sense …We heard about this site that had been used previously for Itchycoo Park. It was really ideal the way it’s situated by I-24 and has the essential ingredients to make an event like this work, and it’s a beautiful piece of land.”

Capps says another deciding factor was the welcoming residents of Manchester. “The community was very receptive,” he says. “And I should point out that research shows [Manchester] is a one-day drive for 70 percent of the U.S. [population], so it’s a good location.”

Though not everyone was originally thrilled about the festival coming in town, the way was eventually paved. “Everyone in Manchester was a little skeptical because of the bad taste in their mouths after Itchycoo,” Dotson says. “People didn’t think it was morally right because there might be some drinking and some dope out there and didn’t think the police needed to be taxed with being out there. But everyone who had a part, medics, police etc, were paid handsomely.”

In fact, those worries were laid to rest when the numbers started coming, spelling out Bonnaroo’s effect on the local community.

“Business, as always”

The festival has had a profound impact on this Southern community, both economically and culturally. A 2005 research study done by the Business and Economic Research Center at Middle Tennessee State University found that between 2001 and 2004, Coffee County’s employment rate increased roughly nine percent and retail sales increased about 10.5 percent. The festival turns Manchester into the state’s sixth largest city, if only for a few days every June. The study also found that in 2005 the economic impact for local business was $14 million while personal incomes in Manchester swelled by a little more than $4 million.