BY BRI PERKINS
“Country Fest” is a country music festival that takes place at Clay’s Park during the Summer. Many WHS students go to this festival each year for the entire week, or just for a day. Last year the main headliners were Morgan Wallen, HARDY, Gabby Barrett, and Jason Aldean.
These headliners brought thousands of country music fans to the festival. More specifically, according to The Respiratory, a newspaper based in Canton, it brought in a record number of 25,000 people.
This year it was announced that the headliners will be Kane Brown, Jon Pardi, and Sam Hunt.
The new lineup has created a bit of an uproar with fans that enjoy last year’s lineup. Comments on Country Fests Instagram post included sayings such as “Holy Mid ” and “Worst lineup to date”.
WHS students Sydney Daily and Kendall Smith pose in the VIP section of Country Fest in 2022. Daily and Smith attended the festival together the entire weekend as commuters.
Tom Bowen has been working at Country Fest backstage for multiple shows now. According to Bowen there is a lot more that goes into picking the lineup and the artists for each year then what the public thinks. The program has to find artists in the area at that time and that are willing to perform at their budget.
“Those artists can make more than a million dollars a night,” said Bowen. “Not every artist is available when we do our shows so there is a ton of behind the scenes work to get any and every artist there for the event.”
Country Fest is taking place June 14th-17th this year and the directors of the event have to choose people in their price range and in the area at the time. This makes it hard to find the high demand artists for every single show. With this supposed “mid lineup” fans sold out the tier one tickets even faster than last year in a record time of 26 minutes. Even with the initial negative feedback, most fans rallied together to support the event. Many students at WHS have already purchased tickets for this upcoming festival.
Sydney Daily, junior at WHS, believes that Country Fest will be just as popular this year as it was in previous years. Daily has been to Country Fest for the past two years and has been in the pit both years. She is among one of the many students at WHS that attend Country Fest and commute to the park each night.
Olivia Benner, Sammi Voitko, Adi Myers, and Chloe Leavitt pose in the camper section of Clay’s Park in preparation for Country Fest 2022. Leavitt said, “I enjoy getting dressed up for Country Fest and being able to release my inner country during the week of Country Fest.”
“I think that since so many people have been going to Country Fest for so long that when it comes down to it, they’re probably going to go,” says Daily.
Alongside Daily, Chloe Leavitt, senior, has also been to Country Fest for the past two years. Leavitt has a camper at Clay’s Park and stays there instead of commuting. Leavitt also agreed with Daily that everyone will end up having a good time no matter what the lineup is.
“I’m excited for the next Country Fest because regardless who is playing, I am going to have a good time,” said Leavitt.
All in all, The Country fest is a large-scale social event that brings together people of all ages. Students at WHS are said to go for a good time no matter what the lineup is. The festival at Clay’s park is presumed to be busy as ever this year according to Bowen. More information about Country Fest can be found on its website.
