You’ve already bought pre-sale tickets, the lineup is out, and you’re already dreaming of your trip to the Farm this June with your crew.
Now what?
Rumor season is over, and now we get to a painful six months of waiting it out to return back to Manchester together this June. There’s a lot to get done in that amount of time though. Roo is a marathon that requires a lot of preparation, and that six months of waiting time is plenty to get a lot of fun stuff done. With that in mind, we’ve put together this guide to making the best of your time to prep for Bonnaroo.
Discover New Music!
This one is obviously one of the most important. AC Entertainment has delivered one of the best overall lineups in years for 2019, offering a diversity that hasn’t been seen on the lineup poster in some time. It’s insane that acts like John Prine or the Grand Ole Opry can occupy the same grounds as Lil Dicky and Cardi B.
The Bonnaroo office offers a great Spotify playlist to get you started, but these types of overall playlists tend to really only scratch the surface. If you’ve started in a place like that and find a few new artists you like (we loved discovering The Nude Party), add an entire album to a playlist and find some of their deep cuts that you might love. Even if you have a favorite headliner like Childish Gambino, it’s worth revisiting some of his old material to find hidden gems you might have missed!
Get Roo Fit!
Like we’d mentioned above, Roo is a marathon in so many ways. Four or more days with a lot of walking, dancing, and getting fried by the hot Tennessee sun takes a lot out of you, so getting fit is almost a requirement if you want to be able to physically enjoy Roo to the maximum.
You’ve got six months to start getting in better shape, and Roo is just the encouragement you need to be a better you anyways! Start walking more, take the stairs instead of the elevator, maybe take up running. If you really want to be serious about it like a Roo pro, we encourage you to follow Roo Fitness where our good friend Celia has curated a few pages of her expert advice. She’s even put together an awesome program she’s just started that we highly recommend!
Gather Supplies!
This is one hack we’ve adopted ourselves in the past few years. Bonnaroo requires a lot of supplies to help get you through the long weekend. Stuff like baby wipes, paper plates, camp showers, snacks, lighting, first aid kids, all sorts of things. We’ve gotten into the habit in recent years of picking up a thing or two that we know that we’ll need at Bonnaroo every time we buy a week’s worth of groceries or make a stop at Walmart or Target for a few things we need. This makes it so much easier (and often cheaper) than buying everything at the last minute the week before Roo.
If you want to go pro in this area, we can’t recommend our good friends with FestPak enough. This awesome company out of Austin, Texas curates custom boxes of necessary festival supplies that you’ll need, along with a few goodies that adds to the fun.
Plan Out Your Projects!
In recent years, we’ve gotten to know some of our fellow Roovians pretty well. Good folks like Ron from the RooChute or Mitchell from Camp Reddaroo. One thing we’ve picked up from them is that Roo is what you make of it, and it’s also a big platform for all kinds of fun and hijinks. Ron and his crew plan Roochute activities all throughout the year, and Mitchell and Reddaroo are constantly plotting the next fun thing that they’ll be up to in the Group section.
What will you make of Roo? Do you have a totem idea you’d like to try? Maybe a costume that you want to put together for Late Night? A funny flash mob that you’d like to organize? Start on it now! Plot out the details of what you’ll need, who you’d like to be involved, and how you’d want it to add to everyone’s overall experience. The fun thing about Bonnaroo is that everyone is supporting each other’s wild ideas, and we’re all here to help and take part!
Six months might seem like a long way away, but take it from us, it’s a lot closer than you’d think. With so many things to be working on and having fun with in the time leading up to Bonnaroo, it’ll actually be here before you know it if you stay busy!
Header Photo Credit: Nathan Zucker on Bonnaroo Media
The Real Roo Bus 