Festival goers can start planning their exodus to rural Manchester, TN. The increasingly popular Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival has announced that it will return to its host 700-acre farm for a ninth year on June 10-13, 2010.
The date announcement will be closely followed by the first 2010 ticket presales, which begin November 27 at 12 p.m. (ET). A limited number of four-day, general admission tickets will be available for $209.50, plus applicable fees. Once those supplies have been exhausted prices will increase incrementally to $224.50 and then $234.50, before a final increase to $249.50.
Ticket presales end in the last minutes of December 31, with regular onsales starting up in late January and early February. The first details of the Bonnaroo artist lineup will also be announced during the early 2010 onsale period.
Bonnaroo will resume its layaway payment program for 2010, allowing ticket buyers to make payments for their orders in $50 installments. The program began in 2009 and ultimately accounted for more than 10 percent of the event’s total ticket sales, according to a report from Billboard. More details on the 2010 payment plan are available on the festival’s official Web site.
The eighth annual Bonnaroo was held June 11-14, 2009. Upon its conclusion, Bonnaroo promoters Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment reported a significant attendance increase to 75,000 according to early estimates, up from the 2008 total of 70,000 attendees. Bonnaroo’s sell-out point is approximately 80,000 tickets.
Each year, the music and arts festival hosts more than 100 musical acts and dozens of comedians across a series of stages and tents. In recent years, Bonnaroo headliners have included Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band and Phish (2009), Kanye West and Pearl Jam (2008), Tool and The Police (2007), and Radiohead and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (2006).
Currently, Rolling Stone has singled out the recently reunited Pavement as a leading favorite to headline Bonnaroo 2010. The influential ’90s lo-fi band currently has a 2010 tour booked internationally from March through May, followed by four New York City dates in September, leaving the calendar wide open for a potential date at Bonnaroo in mid-June.
Pavement has also surfaced as a potential headliner for Coachella 2010, which is booked for April 16-18. While the band has overseas concerts scheduled a bit before and after Coachella, its itinerary is clear during those dates. Pavement guitarist Scott Kannberg previously told Rolling Stone that the group was in talks with several major 2010 festivals.