At Bonnaroo 2018
In a notable break with tradition, this year's Bonnaroo lineup announcement came broken down by day. That’s super useful information if you know you can only go a certain day or days — it’s pretty easy to decide whether to buy a ticket or not based on who’s playing when you can be there. But if you’ve got a ticket, you’ll want to know who’s playing when and what kind of schedule conflicts you’re looking at, and those details are now available on the Bonnaroo website.
Some highlights include:
- Set times are a bit more fluid than in years past, when each day’s headliner would typically play the main What Stage from roughly 9-11 p.m. (earlier on Sunday).
- The Grand Ole Opry showcase is 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Thursday, with The Nude Party, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, The Comet Is Coming and Saba among your later choices.
- On Friday, Childish Gambino plays 8:45-10 p.m. on What Stage, while a two-hour Phish set follows from 11 p.m.-1 a.m. If that’s not your jam (sorry), Beach House is playing during the early part of Phish’s set, and Deafheaven is on later.
- For fans of country (and/or good songwriting in general), Kacey Musgraves, Ruston Kelly and Maren Morris’ sets are spaced far enough apart on Saturday that you can definitely see all of them, and they could even guest on each others’ sets should they choose.
- Sadly, John Prine and Jim James are playing almost the exact same slot on different stages on Saturday night (8:15-9:30 p.m. at That Tent and 8:30-9:45 p.m. at This Tent, respectively).
- In the usual “headliner” slot for Saturday, you have The National at the second-tier Which Stage from 9:45-11 p.m., followed by Post Malone at What Stage from 11 p.m.-12:15 a.m.
- On Sunday, Cardi B is on Which Stage from 7:30-8:45 p.m., overlapping the tiniest bit with Phish’s closing set on What Stage from 8:30 p.m.-midnight.
You’ll also notice that there’s no modest-sized beer-sponsor tent on the schedule. If it is gone for good, that's a bit of a bummer — there have been quite a few memorable shows there. But far too often, those acts ended up playing to a handful of people. There also is no space in the schedule reserved for the comedy tent,
which went away last year, but we could perhaps see some later comedy bookings. There is also a new stage in the campgrounds called Where in the Woods that features DJs that you may (or may not) have heard of.
When you click through, be sure to note there are two pages to each day's schedule, and the second page has info on activities at the Plaza areas in the campgrounds. That includes Plaza 2: Sanctuary of Self Love, curated by Paramore’s Hayley Williams, where you’ll find events like meditation, a mental health panel and art installations; The Vinyl Club dance party founder Nekos Barnes is set to run a version of the party there called Nashville Vinyl Club each night from midnight-2 a.m. There’s also Plaza 7: The Ville, co-curated by the folks at Fort Houston and the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corporation, with concerts from artists like country champ Charlie Worsham (playing at 6:15 p.m. on Sunday evening) and DJ sets from Sparkle City Disco (12:30 a.m.-3 a.m. Saturday night) and Coach and Rate (1 a.m.-3 a.m. Friday night and Sunday night).
Remaining tickets start at $339 and are available right here.
