Bonnaroo festival will take 2027 off

Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival announced on August 21 that it will skip its 2027 edition, saying the grounds at its Manchester, Tennessee site need time to recover from storm damage, including flooding that disrupted this year's event. "The Farm, particularly the main venue, needs a break to rest and recover" after "back to back years of storms," organizers said in a statement.

Bonnaroo has run in rural Tennessee since 2002 and grew into one of the country's best-known multi-day festivals for its wide-ranging lineups spanning rock, hip-hop, electronic and jam bands. This year's edition, held in June, saw the delay and cancellation of multiple sets, the evacuation of some festival areas and periods where attendees were told to shelter in place during a heavy Sunday rainstorm.

Organizers said they had already invested heavily in the grounds ahead of the 2026 festival, including improved drainage, 4.5 miles of new roadways and 135 acres of new grass, upgrades they said "strengthened the Farm's resiliency to Mother Nature." Even so, consecutive years of severe weather left the site unable to recover in time for another edition in 2027.

The pause continues a run of weather-related setbacks for the festival. The 2020 edition was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2021 festival, moved to September, was scrapped after Hurricane Ida turned the grounds to mud. A shortened 2025 festival was also cut early by heavy rain.

Accounts of what comes next differ. Pitchfork reported that organizers plan to bring the festival back in 2028, while the Los Angeles Times noted that Bonnaroo's statement did not include a confirmed return date. For now, the festival tracker carries no 2027 Bonnaroo dates, with fans left watching for word on when the festival plans to return to the Farm.