Bonnaroo organizers said Friday morning, Aug. 21, 2026, that the festival will not return in 2027, closing the gates for a full year after severe storms disrupted this summer’s event and forced another round of cancellations. The pause gives the 700-acre spread in Manchester, Tenn., a chance to rest after back-to-back weather blows.
The decision lands now because fans, artists and crews were already dealing with the fallout from June 14, when performances were temporarily paused, attendees were told to shelter in place and Centeroo was evacuated because of heavy rain and lightning. Nearly a dozen sets were canceled, including Aly & AJ’s set, which was knocked out for the second year in a row by weather at the festival. For anyone trying to follow the future of Bonnaroo 2027, this is the clear answer: there will be no festival that year.
Organizers said they had spent a great deal of effort and money before the 2026 festival improving the campgrounds and Centeroo, including better drainage, 4.5 miles of new roadways and 135 acres of new grass. Those upgrades were meant to strengthen The Farm, but the storms still cut short the weekend and left the site with limited time to recover from back-to-back years of bad weather. The festival had already been canceled in 2025 after an evacuation notice on Friday night and the loss of the rest of the event after one full day of music.
The contradiction is plain: the work was done, the grounds were improved and the weather still won. Organizers are not saying the festival is over, only that The Farm, especially the main venue, needs time to rest and recover after a run that has included cancellations in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic, in 2021 because of flooding spawned by Hurricane Ida, and now repeated storm disruptions in 2025 and 2026.
That leaves 2028 as the next realistic return point, unless organizers decide to change the way the festival is built, moved or protected before then. For Aly & AJ, and for fans who have watched the same weather keep taking pieces out of the weekend, the year off is not a pause in planning so much as an admission that The Farm needs one season without a crowd.
