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What We Learned @ Bonnaroo

Erica Voetsch July 8, 2010 Bonnaroo Manchester, TN

This will just be a sort of recap or list of what we learned/experienced at Bonnaroo. Maybe amusing, maybe disturbing, maybe it makes you wish you were there or quite possibly makes you glad you weren't. Enjoy!

1. If ever you have dreamed of going to a place in the Continental U.S. that drug use is basically legal, buy your tickets to Bonnaroo 2011!
2. Bonnaroo seems to be some sort of mecca for people with really, really bad tattoos.
3. When the heat index is over 100 degrees, even the morbidly obese will be scantily clad.
4. Don't go to an outdoor music festival in the middle of Tennessee in June dressed in a wetsuit. And if you do, go with friends you can trust not to leave you passed out on a random tarp in the mid-day sun.
5. 90% of the vendors at Bonnaroo are head-shops.
6. Do not go to Bonnaroo if you have issues with personal space. You'll be much better off if you go in expecting to share the same 5ft of space with 25 sweaty, smelly people - I mean, 25 of your new closest friends.
7. Only thing worse than sitting in the sun when the temps are in the 90's with humidity hovering right around 95% - having to go into a filthy porta-potty in that same weather.
8. Don't sit near any fences/shrubs/trees/immovable objects - chances are someone has peed (or worse) there.
9. It is apparently perfectly acceptable at Bonnaroo for women to wear only what was advertised as "booby painting" as a top. Use your imagination.
10. Smoking (regular cigarettes) is either much more prevalent still than I thought, or just moreso among the Bonnaroo types.
11. Do not expect to sleep past 7:00 a.m. in a tent in Tennessee in mid-June.
12. Bonnaroo has the best fried pickles we've ever had.
13. There is not much better on a boiling hot day than ice-cold, fresh-squeezed lemonade. Pure amazingness in a plastic cup.
14. If you have a hard time seeing over the crowd, practice walking on stilts!