Bid adieu to Bonnaroo

Enterprise Park in Calverton, N.Y., is quickly gaining a reputation as the best place to not stage a major rock festival. On Tuesday, the organizers of the Bonnaroo Festival pulled the plug on their plan to bring Bob Dylan, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the Dead and many others to the Long Island venue for a massive three-day festival with an expected crowd of 75,000.

Bonnaroo officials said the decision was prompted by the collapse of the planned Field Day Music Festival at the same site last weekend. That show, headlined by Radiohead, the Beastie Boys and Beck, ran into a thicket of bureaucracy in the days before the show and could not secure the needed permits. An abbreviated version of Field Day was hastily staged at a New Jersey stadium.

According to a posting on the Bonnaroo Web site, organizers “have investigated and analyzed the circumstances surrounding the cancellation of Field Day, as well as the atmosphere which the cancellation has created.... It would be irresponsible to the artists, to the festival-goers, to citizens in the community and to ourselves to move ahead with our plans given the circumstances that now exist.”

Refunds will be sent to fans, according to the posting. The Bonnaroo Festival began last year in Tennessee and returns to that state this weekend. The Long Island show had been planned at the franchise’s first foray into another region.