Bonnaroo over the years has featured artists in reggae, country, bluegrass, jazz, soul and even gospel. Photo by Adam Dubbin/TheSequitur.com

But, in reality, if Bonnaroo had all of that, it might never have become, according to The Tennessean, the world’s top grossing music and arts festival.

Bonnaroo, in Manchester, Tenn., has succeeded where other music festivals, namely 1999’s Woodstock, have failed in large part because of who Bonnaroo is.

The festival is a fusion of two regional music promoters – one based in New Orleans, the other in Knoxville, Tennessee – who both came about in the 1990s to fill a void of musical venues and entertainment in their communities.

And filling another vacuum – this one left on the music festival scene following the collapse of Woodstock ‘99 – would have had an entirely different result if the progenitors of Bonnaroo had been, for instance, MTV instead of Superfly Productions and A.C. Entertainment, some say.

“It would be totally different,” says Wayne Bledsoe, 25-year Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel veteran and its entertainment columnist. “The thing, to me, that makes Bonnaroo work is that it’s run by people who honestly love music. I don’t think they generally bring people (to Bonnaroo) they don’t like. If a big corporate person was running this, they would look at all the stats and figures and see who would appeal to this demographic and that demographic.”

A local study, for example, showed that Bonnaroo brought in up to $10.5 million in direct spending to the local economy in 2005 alone.The Roo, as it’s sometimes affectionately called, features genres of music beyond just rock, metal, or hip-hop.  Its lineup over the years has featured artists in reggae, country, bluegrass, jazz, soul and even gospel.

Instead of just names that will attract large ticket sales, the festival promoters also offer venues for such previously unknowns like the American Jewish reggae artist Matisyahu, who garnered national attention and a spot on “The Late Show with David Letterman” after a 2005 Bonnaroo appearance.

Bledsoe also points out that Bonnaroo organizers set up smaller tents for local artists to perform, which, he said, would be unheard of in larger corporate-hosted events.

But the regional promoters still manage to bring some of the biggest national and international names in music all the way to a 700-acre farm in the middle of Tennessee.

In Bonnaroo’s first couple years, Superfly Productions and A.C. Entertainment booked, to name a few, Jurassic 5, James Brown, The Allman Brothers Band and The Roots.

“Both of them had tons of contacts,” Big Hassle Media President Ken Weinstein, who handles festival publicity, said of Bonnaroo’s promoters. “So when it came time to run the festival, there were a lot of relationships already in place.”

A.C. Entertainment, which was co-founded in 1991 and is still led by Ashley Capps, a one-time aspiring musician himself, invigorated Knoxville’s nightlife and made it a music Mecca of sorts in the South, by nearly all accounts.

Even before Bonnaroo, the promotion company brought Hootie and Blowfish and the Dave Matthews Band repeatedly to Knoxville prior to their super-stardom days and after.

Capps also was ahead of the music industry curve when he booked the likes of Garth Brooks, Mary Chapin Carpenter and the Neville Brothers in the late 1980s at his old club before the artists made it big, according to media reports.

Now, A.C. Entertainment, which manages two Knoxville theatres, reports that it books or presents more than 500 shows a year.

“They have worked with artists on a very personal basis,” Sentinel columnist Bledsoe said. On the other hand, if it were a large corporation booking the shows, “it would be all contracts,” he added.

Those personal contacts were instrumental when A.C. Entertainment hooked up with Superfly Productions to launch Bonnaroo in 2002 in Manchester, about 170 miles southwest of Knoxville. Superfly Productions had already been booking shows in the New Orleans area for Mardi Gras, Jazzfest and other venues.

And the same group of guys who formed Superfly 10 years ago – Jonathan Mayers, Rick Farman and Richard Goodstone – still make up the core of the organization, according to Louisiana corporate records.

As for A.C. Entertainment, some of its key principals are Capps, his wife, Maria Clark, and Carey S. Archer, a former band keyboardist who now is a vice president in the company, according to Tennessee corporate records.

Still, Superfly Productions and A.C. Entertainment are not able to do Bonnaroo on their own.

This year, some its sponsors include HBO, XBOX 360, Wal-mart.com, Citibank and even Garnier Fructis, the creators of a line of scented hair care products, Weinstein said.

[T]here’s no sign that the money is changing Bonnaroo or the promoters who gave birth to it.But Bonnaroo organizers say that doesn’t mean this once-underground music festival, named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 50 events that changed music, is going corporate, commercial or mainstream.

“We’ve always had these corporate sponsors from the get go,” Big Hassle’s Weinstein said. “No one realizes that.”

Instead of blanketing the stage and festival with corporate logos and banners, however, Weinstein insists Bonnaroo uses its sponsors to enhance the week’s activities, such as XBOX’s sponsorship of an arcade tent.

Contrary to some reports, MTV was never a sponsor of last year’s Bonnaroo, according to Big Hassle Media. And the rumors that MTV owns a piece of Bonnaroo can also be put to rest.

“That is not true,” A.C. Entertainment spokeswoman Paige Travis said. “I don’t think MTV is involved in Bonnaroo in any way.”

Weinstein added that, like other media, MTV only covers the festival. (Editor’s note: They do have some really nice equipment, though.)
 
Nonetheless, Bonnaroo has been a cash cow for A.C. Entertainment, Superfly and Manchester, Tenn.

A local study, for example, showed that Bonnaroo brought in up to $10.5 million in direct spending to the local economy in 2005 alone, according to media reports.

And Billboard.com reports that revenue for Bonnaroo between 2004 and 2006 has been $14.5 million, 13.4 million and $15 million, respectively.

But there’s no sign that the money is changing Bonnaroo or the promoters who gave birth to it.

“I don’t think they changed significantly,” Bledsoe said of A.C. Entertainment execs. “I think actually things became more relaxed because they had something that brought in money on a regular basis.”