Bonnaroo an estimated $21M economic boost

Brian Johnson, front, drove from Chattanooga to attend a prior Bonnaroo and brought his friends, Rachel Whitson and Bob Griffith from Illinois.

A study released by MTSU estimates this weekend?s Bonnaroo music festival will inject $14 million into the Coffee County economy and around $7 million into the economy of surrounding counties.

?The people who come to Bonnaroo, most of them travel a great distance,? said Dr. Murat Arik, the lead investigator in the MTSU study. ?They come to enjoy themselves and spend money, and a lot of that money is spent in surrounding counties.?

Large grocery stores located on the four-lane to Manchester, like the Kroger and Wal-Mart in McMinnville, expect to be overrun by Bonnaroo festival-goers all day Thursday and Friday morning.

?We?re getting ready with water, beer, chips, snacks, health bars and things like that,? said Kroger manager Lori Leth. ?We get a real good business from the Bonnaroo crowd.?

Music begins Thursday night at the four-day event held on a 700-acre farm in Manchester.

This year features one of the best lineups in Bonnaroo history headlined by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on Friday night.

Saturday will feature performances from Radiohead, Beck, Elvis Costello and Blues Traveler. Bonnie Raitt is scheduled to play Sunday.

Filter magazine?s Benjy Eisen reviewed Bonnaroo 2005 as living ?up to its reputation as the single greatest music festival in America.?

All 80,000 Bonnaroo tickets are sold out, but thousands of other fans flock to Middle Tennessee without tickets to experience the unique atmosphere that can only be found at Bonnaroo.

The MTSU study revealed $1.9 million in direct spending by Bonnaroo organizers last year and $8.6 million by Bonnaroo fans, just in Coffee County. Dr. Arik said the ?ripple effect? accounted for the remaining economic impact in Coffee County.

?From our surveys, we found nearly 96 percent of respondents use their own car as transportation to Bonnaroo and they come from nearly all 50 states, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany and England,? said Arik. ?Bonnaroo is in its fifth year and people know what they?re doing by now. It?s expensive to eat if you buy your food from vendors and our survey showed 36 percent of people bring their own food. When they do that, they are usually stopping right before the festival.?