20,000 lucky people are going to get to see Luke Bryan on a farm in Eyota, Minnesota on Saturday. The appearance by the country music superstar is part of his "Farm Tour” and it will stop by the Gar-Lin Dairy Farm.
Eyota is located just east of Rochester and has a population of about 2,000. That means this show would increase the population tenfold.
Mayor Tony Nelson of Eyota says Bryan’s people approached the Gar-Lin Dairy Farm about doing a show there. Speaking to WCCO's Morning News with Vineeta Sawkar, Nelson says this show will be a challenge logistically.
“Evidently, every year he does some sort of a farm tour, so this started about seven months ago,” explains Mayor Nelson. “They picked the site and from there, it's just kind of been on and off meetings trying to figure out traffic flows, how to get 20,000 people off of the main interstates, down township roads and city streets. After seven months, we’re finally to the day tomorrow.”
The concert is already sold out and the host farm had to do a lot of preparation to have a concert of this size.
“Basically they just did their final cutting for their hay fields and that's where the concert is going to be set up,” explains Nelson. “They're starting, I believe this morning, and they will be starting to do parking. Earlier this week, they started getting portable lights out there for the parking areas and for around the concert. And it sounds like about six o'clock tomorrow morning all the busses will pull in and they will start setting everything up.”
It is certainly a unique experience to have an artist the caliber of Luke Bryan do a concert in such a relatively remote and rural location compared to most major shows. Mayor Nelson says while the concert is actually out in the township, they are planning for a lot of people inside the town of Eyota.
“We're assuming there will be a lot of people that will be coming to town early,” explains the mayor. “We have two local bars in town that each have events set up, with food trucks and tents. And then we have a local restaurant who's also geared up for the crowds coming in.”
Mayor Nelson says they are preparing like they do for their annual celebration, Eyota Days.
“We get about 2,000 people in town throughout the day,” says Nelson. “We're kind of setting up for Eyota about the same as our town celebration knowing that a lot of the people will go straight out to the concert site where they can tailgate for three hours while parking is open. And then the gates open at 5:00 and they have their food vendors out there and the beer trucks and a bunch of other sites that you can go and look at.”
Nelson also says they needed to increase the security and have called out to outside law enforcement agencies for help.
“In Eyota, we’re bringing in an extra Homestead County Deputy to help out, you know, just with anything that could happen in town,” explains Nelson. “I do know that out on the grounds that basically the whole Sheriff's Department will be out there once the concert starts. The Minnesota State Patrol will be on the highways and then of course Luke Bryan has his own security company that he travels with and they've hired all their security people.”
The show in Eyota will actually be the sixth in Bryan’s series. He performed in Murdock, Nebraska Thursday and is in Boone, Iowa Friday night before coming to Minnesota. The previous week Bryan did shows in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.
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