MoneyJun 14, 2025
The Cancellation of One of America’s Biggest Music Festivals Is A Lesson To All Travelers and Festivalgoers — Plan For the Unexpected, Insurance Probably Won’t Save You Here
Event Risk
Noah Weidner
Discover
We’re only a few weeks into summer, and 2025 is already shaping up to be a historic year for extreme weather — think baseball-sized hail, severe winds, and tornado outbreaks sweeping the nation.
But while the damage is leaving Americans with banged up cars and roofs — often leading to expensive repairs or inconvenient calls to their insurance providers — the weather is also creating costly problems for summer travelers.
Gone-aroo: More than 80K festivalgoers descend on rural Tennessee every year for Bonnaroo — one of America’s biggest music and arts festivals — with high hopes to catch the music of the moment and soak in the summer spectacle. While day one went off without a hitch, those who made the trek to Manchester this year awoke to an unexpected and unwanted guest… heavy rains. And after delays plagued day two, organizers eventually canceled the festival, citing the precarious weather situation and guidance from the National Weather Service.
Batting .500 over the last six years, all travelers — not just festivalgoers — can learn something from Bonnaroo: anything can happen. There’s plenty to take away from the festival’s troubles because while a refund might soften the blow, travelers won’t be getting money back for travel costs, time off, or the heaviness of that long ride home.
How can you prepare? It’s pretty hard to prepare for the wildly unexpected, such as a mid-festival cancellation or an unfortunate schedule change. But when traveling, it pays to make flexible plans: budget extra money in case of chaos, book flexible accommodations and flights that can be canceled without a fee or exchanged for flight credit, and stay safe. That’s true not just for festivals but all travels — where keeping your knees bent and planning for the unexpected is an unfortunate, and increasingly quarrelsome, part of the adventure.
