A niggling doubt I had in the back of my mind from last year's festival statistics, with the greater attendance and larger number of acts, was that this festival would grow too big. And the fact that Ashley Capps no longer owns Bonnaroo and now solely has Big Ears, leads me to wonder if Bonnarroo was subsidising Big Ears, which allowed BE to have a smaller, weirder lineup. And now that Big Ears has only itself to subsidise, that growth in attendance numbers and the booking of more mainstream acts has become an economic imperative to keep it going. I have a fear that the festival's growth in size and attendance will suppress what made it great in the first place, and the future is looking like a SXSW-in-Appalachia.