Police said a man was found dead Friday morning in a vehicle at the 17th annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee.
Authorities responding to a medical call early Friday discovered a man dead inside a vehicle parked on the festival’s campground, roughly 60 miles south of Nashville.
The Coffee County Sheriff’s Office identified the deceased as Michael Donivan Craddock Jr., 32, of Mount Juliet, Tenn., and transported his body to the state medical examiner’s office for an autopsy to determine his cause of death, The Tennessean reported.
No foul play is suspected in Craddock’s death, said Sheriff Steve Graves.
“The safety of our patrons is our highest priority, and our sympathies go out to his family and friends,” organizers of the Bonnaroo festival said in statement.
Craddock’s death is the first on-site fatality reported at Bonnaroo in three years, albeit the thirteenth in the festival’s 17-year history, The Tennessean reported.
The last reported death happened in 2015 after a 47-year-old man with a pre-existing cardiac issue collapsed on the grounds, while other attendees succumbed previously for reasons ranging from drug overdoses to hyperthermia, or overheating.
“The temperature is 90 with a heat index of 99,” Lucy Knott, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s office, told The Tennessean on Friday afternoon. “We can’t stress it enough that concert goers to drink a lot of water. Staying hydrated will save your life.”
The annual music festival began on Thursday and runs through Sunday. Artists scheduled to perform at this year’s event include Eminem, Bon Iver and The Killers. About 65,000 tickets were sold to last year’s event.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.