Bonnaroo is taking a year off. Organisers behind the long-running Manchester, Tennessee festival confirmed the event won’t return in 2027, telling fans in an Instagram post that The Farm, and particularly its main venue area, needs real time to recover after repeated storm damage. The announcement comes two months after a 2026 edition organisers described as filled with “the good things in this world,” even as weather once again became part of the story.
That weather proved hard to outrun. Ahead of the 2026 festival, organisers invested heavily in shoring up the site, adding improved drainage, 4.5 miles of new roadways and 135 acres of new grass to strengthen the grounds against future storms. Those upgrades held for most of the weekend, but a heavy rainstorm on the festival’s final day still took a toll, leaving organisers to conclude that back-to-back years of severe weather had outpaced the property’s ability to bounce back in time for another run in 2027.
It’s a tougher call given how strong 2026 otherwise felt. Organisers described the weekend, headlined by the Strokes, Noah Kahan, Kesha and Role Model, as one that left the Bonnaroo community’s “hearts filled to the brim.” Even so, they framed the pause as necessary rather than optional: “This wasn’t an easy decision, and not one we take lightly, but in our hearts, we know this break will only make Bonnaroo better.” 
The decision follows a rough few years for the festival. Bonnaroo was scrapped in 2020 due to the pandemic, called off again in 2021 because of rainfall, and had its 2025 edition cut short entirely after a strong opening day gave way to weather-forced cancellations. Taken together, the 2027 break reads less like a single bad year catching up with the festival and more like organisers finally choosing to get ahead of a pattern before it repeats again.
