Event Venues on Land in Coffee County, Tennessee

How Bonnaroo actually got its permanent home

Bonnaroo didn't start as a zoned, permitted permanent venue -- it became one. Festival producers A.C. Entertainment and Superfly Presents purchased the roughly 530-to-700-acre farm (reported acreage has varied slightly across coverage as adjoining parcels were added) from prior owner Sam McAllister for a reported $8.69 million, and organizers went to the Coffee County Board of Zoning Appeals for a permanent conditional-use permit -- the mechanism that let the property host Bonnaroo and other smaller musical events on a recurring, rather than one-off special-event, basis. That conditional-use approval, granted under the county's zoning resolution, is the same general permitting pathway (not the scale, but the mechanism) that a much smaller event-venue operation -- a wedding barn, a farm festival, a recurring concert series -- would need to pursue for land in unincorporated Coffee County.

The property, commonly referred to as Great Stage Park, sits outside Manchester in what was originally unincorporated Coffee County land, meaning the county -- not the city -- was the zoning authority that approved the original conditional-use permit and that collected event-related revenue for most of the festival's history.

The 2021 annexation and lawsuit -- a real jurisdictional fight

In 2021, Bonnaroo organizers asked the City of Manchester to begin annexing the festival property. Coffee County responded by filing suit against the city, arguing that the annexation -- occurring during a COVID-19-driven pause in the festival's operation -- was timed specifically to strip the county of two sources of tax revenue tied to the event: the county had collected a per-ticket fee on festival admissions for most of Bonnaroo's roughly two-decade run, in addition to standard property-tax revenue. The dispute was fundamentally about which government, city or county, gets to capture the tax and fee revenue generated by a single large, recurring private event -- a question that doesn't come up for an ordinary residential or agricultural annexation, but becomes real money when the annexed property hosts an event drawing tens of thousands of paying attendees each June.

For land near the festival site, the annexation means City of Manchester zoning and codes jurisdiction, not Coffee County's, now governs the farm property itself and any adjoining parcels the city has since pulled into its boundary. If you're evaluating land anywhere near Great Stage Park, don't assume county zoning rules apply without confirming the parcel's actual jurisdiction -- the annexation boundary has been an active, moving line since 2021.

Still active in 2026, after a rocky 2025 and real infrastructure fixes

Bonnaroo remains an active, currently operating event: the 2026 festival ran June 11-14 at Great Stage Park, the same roughly 700-acre Manchester site described above. That continuity matters for anyone evaluating land near the venue, since it confirms the conditional-use permit and annexation situation described here is still the operative, current framework rather than a historical arrangement that's since lapsed.

The 2025 festival was widely reported as "waterlogged" and operationally difficult, generating real fan and press criticism. In response, organizers made specific, verifiable infrastructure investments ahead of the 2026 return -- improved drainage across the grounds, roughly 4.5 miles of new roadway, and 135 acres of new grass added to the campgrounds and Centeroo areas. For a landowner near the site, that kind of post-2025 capital investment is itself a signal of the operators' continued long-term commitment to the property, separate from the underlying zoning and annexation questions.

What this means for a smaller event venue elsewhere in the county

• A permanent or recurring event-venue use in unincorporated Coffee County will most likely need a conditional-use permit from the Coffee County Board of Zoning Appeals, the same general body and mechanism Bonnaroo's organizers used -- budget time and a public-hearing process into any venue timeline, not just a straightforward building permit.
• Road capacity, traffic management, and emergency-access planning get real scrutiny for any event drawing more than a small private gathering; Bonnaroo's scale forced significant public infrastructure investment (TDOT publishes annual traffic-management plans for festival weekend), and a much smaller venue will still be asked how it handles parking, ingress/egress, and emergency vehicle access.
• If the venue sits on land actively used for farming, Tennessee's Agritourism Promotion Act liability protections can apply to inherent-risk injuries at an agritourism-qualifying event, provided the required written warning language is used -- but that protection has real limits and doesn't substitute for its own liability insurance and a reviewed venue contract.
• Annexation risk cuts both ways: a venue property near a city's boundary can be annexed into that city later, changing which zoning ordinance and tax structure applies -- worth asking about a parcel's annexation history and proximity to city limits before committing to a long-term event-venue business plan.