Flatlands country festival coming to soccer park

Sporting Park, home to the professional soccer team Sporting Kansas City, will host a three-day country music and camping festival Sept. 12-14.

Headliners of the Flatlands Country Music Festival will be Toby Keith and Luke Bryan.

The Charlie Daniels Band will headline a free show in the plaza area outside the stadium the night before the festival begins.

Sporting Park has partnered with Marquee Events, which runs the WE Fest, a country-music festival in Minnesota.

“It’s essentially a two-and-a-half day music festival," said Andy Tretiak of Sporting Club. "We’ll have a free show headlined by Charlie Daniels that Thursday night, then two full days Friday and Saturdays. Luke Bryan will headline Friday with Darius Rucker, Thompson Square and Rodney Atkins.

“Saturday night will be headlined by Toby Keith. Another artist will be playing with Toby that we will announce in March. It’s essentially a third headliner.”

“We put together a great show,” said John Gourley of Marquee. “The stars were aligned; everything really meshed.”

Camping will be available; details of that are still being worked out, Tretiak said.

Tickets for both days start at $99 for a general admission ticket. There will also be reserved seating and VIP packages. Stadium capacity will be 24,000.

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday at Ticketmaster.

“The concept is to a make the tickets very affordable and make the experience unlike anything that has been done in Kansas City,” said Gourley

The music will start early afternoon and go until midnight; five acts will perform each day, Tretiak said. “But we may add local or regional acts later.”

Gourley said Marquee has done shows in Kansas City going back to the 1970s. Sporting Park, he said, is a special venue.

“We did the Rolling Stones at Arrowhead and U2 at Arrowhead,” he said. “We thought we’d seen all the stadiums and arenas but I was not fully prepared for what I’d see when I walked in here for a soccer game. The 24,000 seats is a real sweet spot for the marketplace.”

The Flatlands festival follows two other multi-day country music festivals in this region:  the three-day Thunder on the Mountain at Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, Ark., June 6-8.  Keith and Bryan are also  headliners at that festival. Thompson Square will also perform. The four-day Country Stampede at Tuttle Creek State Park in Manhattan is June 27-30. Headliners there are Jason Aldean, Little Big Town, Trace Adkins and the Pistol Annies, featuring Miranda  Lambert.

| Timothy Finn, The Star

Comments

[pellboy]

No interest in the main concert, but I might do the free Charlie Daniels gig providing it's more the 70s-era southern rock CDB as opposed to the quasi-religious, Lee Greenwoodesque jingoistic outfit of more recent vintage. I might have to breakout my eagle-flag shirt for this one.

[pellboy]

Oh jeezuz, nevermind. This from a 2011 gig.

Setlist: 1) Redneck Fiddlin’ Man; 2) Drinkin’ My Baby Goodbye; 3) Legend of Wooley Swamp; 4) Saddle Tramp; 5) (What This World Needs Is) A Few More Rednecks;

Break for recitation of ‘Pledge of Allegiance’

6) In America; 7) Black Ice; 8) Long Haired Country Boy; 9) Let ‘Em Win or Bring ‘Em Home; 10) Folsom Prison Blues [Johnny Cash cover]; 11) Amazing Grace; 12) Devil Went Down to Georgia

Fck, Long Haired Country Boy but no South's Gonna Do It Again, Trudy or my personal favorite, No Place To Go. Damn, Fire On The Mountain was one GREAT southern rock album btw.