Concerts Are Back. Meet ‘N’ Greets, Not So Much
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2021 JUNE 7 CountryInsider.com | Sign Up For Daily Email Here Concerts Are Back. Meet ‘N’ Greets, Not So Much. Lauren Alaina’s a hugger. But when she leaves the Moondance Jam stage in Walker, MN, on Saturday, June 19 — her first real show since early 2020 — she won’t be hugging many people. Nor will she be shaking hands and signing photos for groups of fans before her set. Alaina has decided to forego meet ‘n’ greets as she returns to the road, at least for the time being. So have many other artists, as they adapt to a touring environment where COVID-19 remains an ever-present, if diminished, possibility. “We’re not going to do anything like that on these first few shows,” Trisha McClanahan, Alaina’s manager, tellsCountry Insider. “We want to just get back in the system, get our feet on the ground.” (Continued on page 4) COUNTRY INSIDER TOP 5: A Look At The Country Radio Hall Of Fame’s 2021 Class, Starting With CRB Executive Director RJ Curtis. Consultant Joel Raab: When Bits Are Ads And Ads Are Bits. Chris Stapleton, Brooks & Dunn, Old Dominion To Headline September Gulf Coast Jam. “Forever” No. 1: Luke Combs Returns To The Top Of The Mediabase Country Chart. Luke Bryan Brings Back His Farm Tour With September Shows In Six States. 1 | JUNE 7, 2021 CountryInsider.com MoJoe Roberts, PD My 5 Favorite 5 Acts To Watch Before Benny Edwin, PD/PMD 95.5 The Bull / KWNR Collaborations for Las Vegas, NV They Break Through: 93.3 Eagle Country / KGGL Missoula, MT Summer 2021: 1. Drunk - 1. Stomping Grounds - Elle King/Miranda Lambert Reyna Roberts 2. GOOD TIME - 2. You Can Have Him Jolene - Niko Moon/Shaggy Chapel Hart 3. Treasure - 3. Lil Bit - Mary Heather Hickman Nelly/Florida Georgia Line 4. It’s ‘Cause I Am - 4. One Too Many - Callista Clark Keith Urban/P!nk 5. Table for One - 5. Tequila on a Boat - Dani Taylor Dustin Lynch/Chris Lane After A Year Off, Luke Bryan’s Farm Tour Returns This September. Luke Bryan will play six farms over 10 days in September for his 12th Farm Tour, setting up stages in fields in Marshall, WI (Sept. 9); Cedar Rapids, IA (Sept. 10); Chillicothe, IL (Sept. 11); Kingman, IN (Sept. 16); Baltimore, OH (Sept. 17); and Fowlerville, MI (Sept. 18). The Farm Tour dates take place during a break in Bryan’s Proud To Be Right Here Tour, which kicks off next month. Bryan did his first Farm Tour in 2010, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced a hiatus last year. Tickets go on sale to the public Friday. Gulf Coast Jam Announces Labor Day Weekend Festival Headliners. This past weekend’s Gulf Coast Jam went so well, with headliners Luke Bryan, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Brad Paisley drawing a record 23,000+ to Panama City Beach’s Frank Brown Park, that organizers are going to do it again in September. Chris Stapleton, Brooks & Dunn and Old Dominion will headline the 9th Annual Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam September 4-6. The full lineup for the festival will be announced in a few weeks. The June 4-6 Gulf Coast Jam was the largest music festival in the U.S. since March of last year. “CMT Music Awards” Reveal More Collaborations For Wednesday’s Show. R&B star H.E.R. will make her first country music awards appearance Wednesday, performing with Chris Stapleton on the “2021 CMT Music Awards” (8pm ET, CMT and affiliated networks). Also, Ingrid Andress will sing with Canadian pop artist JP Saxe. CMT announced its final two artist pairings on social media. Scheduled presenters on the show include Anthony Mackie, Brett Young, Busy Philipps, Carly Pearce, Dylan Scott, Gladys Knight, Iliza Shlesinger, Little Big Town, Michael Strahan, Mickey Guyton, Restless Road, Tennessee Titans’ Taylor Lewan, Trace Adkins and “CMT Hot 20 Countdown” hosts Cody Alan, Katie Cook and Ashley ShahAhmadi. Eddie Garcia Of “The Bobby Bones Show” Sets Dates For Three-State Walk. Eddie Garcia of Premiere Networks’ “The Bobby Bones Show” will walk from West Virginia down to Tennessee June 21-24 as part of a fundraiser for National Angels. The trek, inspired by George Strait’s 1997 hit “Carrying Your Love With Me,” will take Garcia from Bluefield, WV, to Bristol, TN – approximately 90 miles. Garcia, who fosters two children, has raised more than $60,000 for the non-profit organization dedicated to the foster-care community since announcing the fundraiser on Bones’ show May 24. 3 | JUNE 7, 2021 CountryInsider.com The Summer Of No Meet ‘N’ Greets. (Continued from page 1) Typically with every fair and festival, Lauren signs with management and agents as “a lot of head- autographs for every person there. She’s the one scratching and wondering and watching and waiting that goes out the and seeing.” door and signs for fans for two Even with COVID-19 case numbers declining in hours at the much of the U.S., the disease remains a risk. fence. So this is Nobody wants to be the first act to cancel two kind of a unique weeks of dates because somebody tests positive for experience for COVID-19 and the entire crew has to quarantine. her.” “The artist managers are looking at the logistics and Jordan Davis going, ‘If one person gets one of my people sick will begin his and they get on the bus and roll down the road, the headlining Buy Dirt Tour in September after a next thing you know COVID takes out two busloads summer of festival and casino dates. His team is of band and crew,’” Meacham says. “The financial still deciding how they’ll handle meet ‘n’ greets then, implications of that exposure are significant and not only for fans but for radio. “Radio has been a could quickly derail a tour.” huge thing in our shows,” Jordan Davis said during Red Light Management’s Shawn McSpadden works a recent CRS360 webinar. with Kip Moore, “We try to get them in Jameson Rodgers, wherever we can to do Lainey Wilson, Dee meet ‘n’ greets, do VIPs Jay Silver and Troy or swing by the station to Cartwright. “We’re so play a few songs before excited to get back the show.” None of those to work that we don’t options are givens at the want to do anything moment. that would jeopardize “Are we gonna have a that,” McSpadden meet ‘n’ greet?” Jordan says. “It’s up to the wondered. “Are we individual artists and going to be able to do a VIP thing? We have a lot managers and how they feel, but I don’t know of of fans that look just as much towards our VIP anybody right now that is doing it.” performances pre-show as they do to being at the McSpadden says he’s seen minimal pushback show. about the decision to hold off on meet ‘n’ greets: “Those are a few things that are weird right now, “Everybody has just kind of said, ‘This is one thing still up in the air.” we can do without.’” The demand for such Losing meet ‘n’ greets may free up a touring act’s appearances during daily schedule, but it also deprives them of a major tour stops certainly source of personal, real-time feedback. “These hasn’t diminished, with are creatures who have been on stage and getting stations, labels and fans live love from fans — or the industry, or whoever all looking for clarity. — for their entire careers,” McClanahan says. “When the first tours were “Lauren is certainly someone who thrives on that. announced, I swear to It makes her feel like what she does has value, and God, the next day I had the world has ripped that from them.” Alaina has four or five requests for focused on other areas of her career during the ticket comps and meet ‘n’ greets right off the bat,” time off the road, working on music and working on says RJ Meacham, Curb Records’ SVP, Promotion. writing, McClanahan says, “but they don’t give that “We’re basically telling everybody we’ll circle back immediate feedback.” to them.” Meacham describes his conversations (Continued on page 7) 4 | JUNE 7, 2021 CountryInsider.com A Look At The Country Radio Hall Of Fame’s 2021 Class: RJ Curtis When RJ Curtis started informing radio legends about talent and program director, operations director and their inductions into the Country Radio Hall of Fame, music director, as well as working with the nationally it never occurred to him he might one day be on the syndicated “After MidNite” show. receiving end of such a call. “When KZLA was flipped from country to a rhythmic AC But that’s exactly where Curtis found himself when format called Movin’ in 2006, the first instinct was to Beverlee Brannigan surprised him with the news that get another radio job,” he says. “Then I thought, ‘What he will join Bob Call, Bill Hagy, Norm Schrutt, Heather else can I do?’ I had done radio for a long time and Froglear, Buzz Jackson, Bob Pickett and Angie Ward other things came to me.” in the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2021. That group will be inducted on Oct. 13 at the Westin Nashville. He spent 13 years as a journalist for Radio & Records, Billboard, Country Aircheck and All Access Music “I had no idea it was coming,” Curtis, who is the Group. He also worked as director of regional executive director of Country promotion for Arista Nashville.