Jordan Wilcox
Assistant Publisher
Last week, Nelly and his concert at the Allegan County Fair, was the talk of the town; but he wasn’t the only big-name star to play in Allegan. On Saturday, Luke Bryan performed a sold-out show to over 25,000 concertgoers, in a cornfield at the John Schaendorf Dairy Farm at 2369 28th Street in Allegan. This concert was the third stop on his “Farm Tour 2023,” a six-stop tour where every venue is a family-owned farm, in a small Midwest community.
As for how and why the whole show took place at Schaendorf Dairy, according to Ben Schaendorf, it was all because of a good samaritan. During the early planning stages of the Farm Tour, somebody suggested Schaendorf Dairy as a possible location. So, they contacted Ben in February, and after a couple of meetings with the Schaendorfs, a couple tours of the land, and a soil quality assessment, Schaendorf Dairy was officially added to the roster of tour venues.
The Schaendorfs planted the corn a couple of weeks ago to make a nice place for the stage, and when Luke Bryan and his team rolled in on Saturday, that’s exactly where they set up.
With them, they brought over 30 buses, many of which had trailers, and were packed full of bandmates, equipment, vendor supplies, and even the stage. One such trailer was carrying four large generators and several Starlink satellite dishes, since the cornfield has no power or internet connection.
Bringing all of this with them was necessitated by the jam-packed schedule of the Farm Tour, but that’s not to say they didn’t try to shop locally. In fact, they tried to do that as much as they could. All of the drinks were sourced from a local distributor, and all of the pizzas were baked by Vitale’s of Allegan.
Later on, parking opened up at 2, and entry to the cornfield opened at 5. Some might balk at the three-hour delay between parking and entry, but with many of the surrounding streets experiencing nearly two-hour backups, it was almost necessary.
The show began at 6, and those who attended had nothing but great things to say afterwards. Most of the posts on Facebook say it was either amazing or they had a blast. Many noted that it was great weather and almost everyone seemed to be on their best behavior.