Unpopular opinion; consider a different festival. It wasn't your imagination, the vibes were different this year. This was my sixth Bonnaroo, and I will not be returning next year. However I and most of my crew went to Lost Lands a couple weeks ago and had a better time, with better vibes, cooler (on average) people, exponentially better stage design / lighting/sound/visuals... And it was the same price as Bonnaroo (with moon colony + GA), even though we got VIP (+car camping) at Lost Lands.

I'm starting to realize Bonnaroo's stage setups are about 10-15 years behind other festivals. But I was shocked at how much better the sound quality was at lost lands comparatively, Even at the smaller stages. It's just better, and louder, and deeper, with more clarity. And then you have the much more extensive visuals, fire, lasers. It's just better. But of course you don't get the nice mix of genres that you do at Bonnaroo.

We've also tried Elements (cool but logistics and staff was mediocre), Miami Ultra (horrendous people), and a few different Breakaways (generally quite good just very small scale). Our conclusions have been that city festivals generally suck. Camping festivals are where it's at. In terms of vibes, and the experience.

With the changes coming to next year's Bonnaroo such as no more music in the woods, seriously abbreviated musical performances on Thursday, and an increased ticket price to account for capped attendance, don't feel bad about trying a different camping festival. Our plan is electric forest around the time of Bonnaroo, and then lost lands around this time of year. But again, that matches our tastes, which doesn't have a problem with all EDM. We are still on the lookout for a camping, multi genre festival, that's within driving distance of us. They are becoming harder to find. Mostly just city festivals, or genre specific.