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Area law enforcement will be joined by additional agencies to ensure a safe Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival for concertgoers.

While between 70,000 and 75,000 people are expected to attend the event at the Great Stage Park in Manchester between June 14-18, Manchester Police Chief Bill Sipe said police will be working with other law enforcement agencies to ensure everything goes as smoothly as possible.

“Well it certainly stretches our manpower, no doubt,” Sipe said. “However, due to cooperative efforts between our agency, the county, the state and federal agencies, it certainly helps us tremendously to reach out to them and have their resources available to us as well.”

Sipe said there will most likely be at least a few arrests during the festival this year, that is nothing the police department is not prepared for.

“It happens every year at Bonnaroo,” he said. “We will probably have more arrests than we generally do, but we anticipate that and we sort of plan for that as well.”

Sipe said that while he could not say how many officers will be on duty during the festival, that number will be “many more than what Manchester provides.”

“We will police like we normally police, however, we will be very busy with trying to get traffic through,” he said. “We always try to keep at least one corridor of the roadway open so we can get local traffic through as well as emergency vehicles.”

“We are going to try to get them to work on time and to be able to navigate through the city of Manchester during this time as well,” Sipe added.

Coffee County Sheriff Chad Partin said that since the City of Manchester annexed the Bonnaroo property back in 2021, the majority of the policing responsibility has fallen on the Manchester Police Department.

“Our off duty patrolman, I have arranged where they are going to help the city with whatever duties they want to do,” Partin said. “The City of Manchester annexed all of Bonnaroo, so they are the first line of contact now. We are just the secondary backup.”

Like Sipe, Partin said he also anticipates arrests will be made during the festival and some temporary additions will be made to the Coffee County Jail.

“It varies from year-to-year,” Partin said. “Some years there are more arrests than others.”

Partin said that while the jail is now nearly at capacity during a regular day, the potential for some extra inhabitants isn’t anything they can’t handle.

“If we have Bonnarooers in there that haven’t made bond, the courts work pretty good at getting them in and seeing what they can do to make bond and getting them another continued to another court date or something,” Partin said. “Every year we will have probably two or three that will be with us for a little, but overall that is not really that bad with that many people.”