MANCHESTER, Tenn. — Middle Tennessee State University celebrated this weekend the 10^th year of its partnership with the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival with all the feels — amazing music, unexpected twists and turns, and more real-world experiences for our students.

The Scott Borchetta College of Media and Entertainment has long touted that Bonnaroo was a classroom for its students in video production, audio engineering and journalism. The 2026 edition of the festival lived up to that reputation, as it gave students a taste of not only what they could expect when all goes according to plan, but also how circumstances cause those plans to change.

About 40 MTSU students stood and delivered their crafts in extreme heat, gully washing rains, power outages and deep pockets of mud. While improvements to the Manchester farm site for Bonnaroo after last year’s cancellation due to heavy rains mitigated the worst of this year’s weather impacts, Sunday’s downpours and lightning still prompted a mandatory evacuation for about three hours. The farm reopened around 5 p.m.

Student crews shrugged off the weather problems. Media Arts and Recording Industry students secured the university’s multimillion-dollar video and audio equipment deployed at Bonnaroo’s This Stage on Sunday as the rain fell, while the Journalism students were the first media outlet to report on the evacuation Sunday, as well as a power outage that plagued the site on Friday. The students sheltered in vehicles until the all-clear signal was given.

MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee, who visited the farm Saturday, said he was proud of how students didn’t shy away from challenges — and turned adversity into experience.

“Our students don’t just sit in chairs and hear lectures about how things should work,” McPhee said. “They get into the mud and the rain and the heat and actually do the work necessary to solve problems and produce content on deadline that meets expectations.”

Those expectations were high, said Provost Mark Byrnes, the university’s chief academic officer, who was at Bonnaroo Friday and Saturday. MTSU students working the This Stage produced video and audio for 25% of the live-streaming content shown by Hulu from Bonnaroo. That translated into about 20 shows over three nights, requiring daily shifts of 15 hours or more, plus prep work before the festival began.

“We say MTSU is the university of opportunities with opportunities like this in mind,” Byrnes said. “Our faculty are prepping these students to be career-ready in these fields in play at Bonnaroo. They will leave our university with the seasoning and skills that will help them be successful.”

Beverly Keel, dean of the Borchetta College, said, “Our tenth time at Bonnaroo has been our most successful yet. I am so proud of our students, who delivered professional-quality work while overcoming unexpected issues.

“Our journalism students beat the media at reporting stories, and our media arts students created more than 20 live broadcasts for Bonnaroo on Hulu. Our audio production students mixed the broadcast sound live, and photography students captured unforgettable images.”

One of those students, Micah Lematoa, a video production major, described the experience in one word: “Awesome.”

“We get to work with a whole bunch of cool artists,” he said. “It’s great for my resume and it’s fun to be around here.”

MTSU’s $2 million Mobile Production Lab, the 46-foot remote studio known by students as “the Truck,” served as a mobile control room at the This Stage, where students directed broadcasts, operated cameras and managed audio for live events.

“Our video and audio production students perform every role on our performance stage that the professionals do on their stages,” said professor Bob Gordon, chair of MTSU’s Media Arts Department. “This is as realistic as a class can be.

“The students learn how to deal with everything that can happen at a music festival television production — act changes, bad weather, heat, mud, equipment failure, live on-air mistakes, great shot composition and music interpretation.”

Added Michelle Conceison, chair of MTSU’s Recording Industry Department: “Bonnaroo provides opportunities to experience what it’s like to work at a high-profile music festival and immerse themselves in a world that cultivates community.

“Coached by expert faculty from across our college, our students work at the top level of the profession while recognizing the role they play in providing a musical experience that is unparalleled.” 

Meanwhile, MTSU journalism students produced stories, social media content and photos that the Tennessee Press Association distributed to member print and online organizations. The Tennessean, the Chattanooga Times Free Press and the Nashville Scene were among the media outlets that picked up content from the university’s reporting team.

“Through the heat, rain and muck, they worked diligently with editors to account for each word in a story and every cut in a social video, plus the photos that captured all the standout moments,” said Journalism assistant professor Matt Leimkuehler, who led the student team. “But most of all, they learned what it means to be on a team working toward the same goal — telling the story of an event that’s so important to so many.”

Katie Foss, director of the School of Journalism and Strategic Media, said, “Our students worked through these obstacles while writing and creating content for actual audiences.”

— Andrew Oppmann ([email protected])