What you ought to know about Garth Brooks’ drive-in concert — even if you’re not going
Back in early March, no one could have predicted that hundreds of thousands of people would be champing at the bit to pile into automobiles and fill the spaces at drive-in theaters across the country to watch a one-night-only concert film — during which alcohol is not allowed.
Yet here we are, less than four months later, on the eve of just that very thing happening.
“Encore Live Presents Garth Brooks: A Drive-In Concert Experience,” set for Saturday evening, is being screened at dusk at the Badin Road Drive-In in Albemarle (about 40 miles east of Charlotte) and the Hounds Drive-In in Kings Mountain (about 40 miles west of Charlotte), as well as at more than 300 other outdoor theaters across the U.S. and Canada.
No, it’s not the hoped-for live Garth Brooks concert that sold out Bank of America Stadium when it went on sale last year and was originally supposed to take place on May 2, then was rescheduled for June 13, and is now set for Oct. 10.
But it may be the best thing we can get in these times, and the demand to see the country megastar in 2D has been almost as high as it has been in the past to see him in the flesh.
Now, whether or not you’re planning to attend this drive-in show, you likely have lots of questions — from the really specific (e.g. “Do I have to wear a mask?” “Are the concession stands and restrooms open?” “I really can’t BYOB?”) to more general questions, such as: “Are similar presentations of concerts on the near horizon?”
We’ve got you covered on all counts.
Q. Why isn’t Brooks performing live?
It’s simple, his publicist Nancy Seltzer said in an email: “It will air at dusk in each time zone. That’s why it had to be filmed.”
And it sounds like the 58-year-old country star was pretty meticulous about putting the production together.
“He has spent weeks on this performance,” said Encore Live founder and CEO Walter Kinzie, noting that it was recorded on a sound stage near his home in Nashville. “Garth worked around the clock on it at his ranch near Nashville and then in his studio in Nashville to bring this thing to life. It’s been an ongoing process. The final product was just completed a few days ago.”
Q. How many total tickets were sold?
Seltzer said “since this has never been done before, info is a bit difficult to get,” adding that she was hoping to have final figures on Monday.
Demand was reportedly sky-high. Ticketmaster previously has stated that within two hours of the $100-per-car tickets going on sale on its website on June 19, 50,000 were sold. But several times that number were still queued up waiting to buy, and eventually the website buckled and broke, forcing Ticketmaster to halt sales, reassess and relaunch again the next day.
“At the time that we shut down ticket sales,” Kinzie said, “there were over 300,000 people trying to get a ticket. In the history of Ticketmaster, they have never had a larger on-sale, and they’ve never had a greater demand for a show, period.”
Kinzie said the final tally is 379 total engagements at roughly 300 theaters across the U.S. and Canada.
This is just ballparking, but if you figure about 400 vehicles per theater, and an average of four people to a vehicle, well over half a million fans could see Saturday’s show.
Q. Is this the wave of the future?
As it pertains to the near future, absolutely.
Kinzie is coy about Encore Live’s plans, but teased that “we’ll have some announcements later on” while mentioning “Ticketmaster is in the process of developing an all-new piece of software” aimed at helping his company efficiently sell tickets for similar future events.
Meanwhile, both the Badin Road and Hounds drive-ins will be serving as stops on a drive-in tour headlined by contemporary Christian band Casting Crowns — July 28 in Albemarle and Aug. 21 in Kings Mountain. (Hounds owner Preston Brown also hinted that additional announcements about live tours featuring widely recognizable national artists could be forthcoming soon.)
And the U.S.’s largest concert promoter, Live Nation, recently announced “Live From The Drive-In,” a summer drive-in concert series set in parking lots outside of big indoor venues (in St. Louis, Nashville and Indianapolis) that will feature individual shows by country stars Brad Paisley and Darius Rucker, rapper Nelly, and others.
“I think the landscape for live events will forever be different,” Kinzie said. “Protocols will be different, the way people approach this stuff will be different. There will be an ongoing appetite for ... live entertainment, but in a way that they can do it safely.”
Q. What are the rules of engagement at the show?
Broadly speaking, guests must adhere to all theater rules and policies as well as state and local laws, and both guests and staff will be instructed to adhere to current CDC and state/local guidelines regarding social distancing in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19. (Also: Note that North Carolina’s mask mandate will be in effect.)
But there are definitely some unique distinctions between the overall experiences fans will have in Albemarle and in Kings Mountain.
If you’re going to Badin Road Drive-In:
Gates open at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, and parking is first-come first-served. Owner Tim Robertson said it’s not uncommon even on regular movie nights for vehicles to start lining up outside the gate at 5 or 5:30 p.m.
The dusk show sold out its 350 spaces; the concert will be viewable on both of the drive-in’s two screens, which are 50 to 55 feet high and about 115 feet wide.
Lawn chairs are allowed. Robertson said that if fans are sitting inside of, or directly in front of or behind their vehicle, face masks are not required. Anywhere else on the property, masks are mandatory.
Concession stands will be open (plexiglass has been installed as a barrier between customers and employees), and restrooms will be open (sanitizing will be done by staff every 30 to 40 minutes).
Attendees are allowed to bring in food and drinks from the outside at Badin Road. However, alcohol is explicitly prohibited from the event per the tour. Robertson pointed out that the drive-in has been rented by the tour, so the tour sets the rules.
Badin Road also is among a handful of theaters nationwide that are also offering a late show, starting at midnight. Tickets are available via Ticketmaster, and as of Friday there were still plenty available.
Finally, an only-loosely-related fun fact: “We’re trying to find more ways for us to make money, just like everybody else,” Robertson said. So he’s been renting the place out for a wide array of events. Perhaps the most random? A North Carolina-based loggers association.
“They have to get certification every year to be able to be licensed to be loggers. Well, they can’t do it in a traditional place anymore, so they’re coming to the drive-in tonight down at Albemarle,” he said Thursday. “We’re catering the event, with cheeseburger baskets for everybody in attendance. And then we’re gonna take their DVD and throw it up there on the big screen.”
If you’re going to Hounds Drive-In:
Hounds also has two screens (roughly the same size as Badin Road’s), although it’s down from three after a tornado destroyed it in the spring, owner Preston Brown said.
Gates here open at 6 p.m., and there’ll be a 10-minute-long professional fireworks display — choreographed with video playing on both screens — that will go off right before the concert film.
Tickets did not initially sell out, he said, at least in part due to Ticketmaster’s glitch causing initial confusion by making the Hounds show look like it was sold out. But hurry if you still want to go: Just 26 of 850 allotted spaces were left as of noon Friday.
Lawn chairs are allowed. Unlike at Badin Road, outside food and drinks are not permitted at Hounds. The same alcohol restriction of course applies. (Brown said he has applied for a permit to sell beer and wine that he hopes will be approved next week. However, beer and wine will only be sold at concert events, not during regular movie nights.)
Concession stands will be open. Staff will only allow a limited number of guests into the restrooms at a time.
After the concert ends, all ticketholders are entitled to stick around for a free movie if they’re up for extending their drive-in experience. The featured film? “Smokey and the Bandit.”
Like Badin Road, Hounds also is finding itself useful in unexpected ways amid the pandemic.
On Wednesday night, it hosted a live performance by comedian Bert Kreischer, casting his image on the big screen as he worked a stage to the left of it.
And Brown said he hosted “a ton of graduations,” free of charge, to rave reviews. “The families have said, ‘This was way better than having a traditional graduation, seeing my child was on the big screen.’ Almost every single school has signed up again for next year.”
This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 1:28 PM.
