Bonnaroo owners discuss country music event on festival's land

The owners of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival have discussed with Nashville's top tourism executive the possibility of bringing a country music and camping festival to the Manchester farm.

Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. President and CEO Butch Spyridon said in July that he has talked with organizers, who also own the Manchester property, about a new country music festival that would be in addition to Bonnaroo.

Spyridon touted last month the record-breaking economic impact of this year's CMA Music Fest, which brought in $60.4 million in direct visitor spending. Spyridon has also lauded Bonnaroo for growing into an event in which visitors spend an extra day or two in Nashville.

Earlier this year, Live Nation purchased a controlling stake in Bonnaroo, though co-founders Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment will remain in charge of running the festival. After the deal was announced, Superfly co-founder Rick Farman told Billboard magazine that organizers are "going to put a greater emphasis on bringing some other events to the farm, which I think will be beneficial to everyone involved, the Bonnaroo community and the local and regional community as well."

Spyridon said the idea of additional music events at the Bonnaroo farm has been discussed.

“The Bonnaroo folks even before Live Nation have talked about that for some time," Spyridon said. "Since they own the land, they’d like to hold more than one event per year."

The critical question will be when to hold such a country music festival, and ensuring it doesn't crowd the wildly successful CMA Fest, which is such an essential component of the city's tourism industry.

"I think timing of such an event is probably the most important thing," Spyridon said. "There’s room, but, and I have not talked to them in recent weeks about it, but I would hope that we walk through the timing to make sure it makes sense for everybody.”

There's precedent for a country music festival pairing with a rock and pop festival. In California the country festival Stagecoach takes place after Coachella, which spans two weekends each year. Coachella and Stagecoach are run by Live Nation's chief competitor, AEG Live.

Bonnaroo had a $51 million economic impact in 2012, when The Tennessean last reported on such a study. The four-day festival has an annual attendance of about 80,000 people and grosses in the range of $25 million per year, according to Billboard. Bonnaroo already books some country artists each year, though the festival generally skews toward rock, hip-hop and pop artists.

A spokesman for Bonnaroo did not respond to requests for comment, but Farman told The Tennessean in June that the partnership with Live Nation opens the possibility of making improvements to the festival property.

Reach Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 and on Twitter @tnnaterau.