Lonestar to headline County Fair

Posted 6/1/17

Lonestar — a chart-topping band with roughly 25 years of experience under their boots — will put on a Wednesday, July 26 performance at the fairgrounds’ grandstands.

Among the performers that fell within the county government’s budget, …

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Lonestar to headline County Fair

Posted

Ranch rodeo added to entertainment lineup

The veteran country musicians of Lonestar will bring their talents to Powell next month to headline the 2017 Park County Fair.

Lonestar — a chart-topping band with roughly 25 years of experience under their boots — will put on a Wednesday, July 26 performance at the fairgrounds’ grandstands.

Among the performers that fell within the county government’s budget, Lonestar quickly rose to the top of the fair board members’ list during the planning process.

“The main reason we chose them was because they were a pretty traditional country band that has a well-known name that we thought would fit the fair well,” explained Park County Events Coordinator Teecee Barrett.

Tickets for Lonestar’s show ($34 for box seats/$28 for general seating) and all of the fair’s other grandstand events go on sale at noon today (Thursday).

“We’ve had a huge response so far [to Lonestar] — just calls of when tickets are going to come on sale and people wanting to reserve several box seats together,” Barrett said recently. “I think it will be a good concert with a good turnout.”

The fair was able to book Lonestar for $25,000; Barrett said that was “a really good deal.” The fair received a discount because the band was already planning to travel through this part of the country anyway. (Lonestar’s touring schedule indicates they’ll be between performances at a music festival in Bishop, California, and at the North Dakota State Fair in Minot.)

The traditional crowd pleasers — pig wrestling and the demolition derby — will bookend the fair’s grandstand entertainment on Tuesday, July 25, and Saturday, July 29, respectively.

The arenacross — a racing event featuring motorcycles and side-by-side vehicles — returns again this year and will be put back in the Friday night slot. Organizer Kyle Burkhardt has said Friday night draws more racers; a switch to the middle of the week drove down attendance last year.

The fair’s Thursday night, meanwhile, will feature a new event: a ranch rodeo staged in the horse arenas located behind the grandstands.

“With the type of events we had in the grandstands and the dirt work that has to be done from one to the other, it wasn’t going to be super-conducive to have something in there on a Thursday night,” Barrett explained. “But we still felt like we needed entertainment Thursday night.”

The ranch-style rodeo will feature a different mix of events than a traditional rodeo you might see in Cody, instead featuring things like team doctoring, pinning and wild cow milking, Barrett said.

“They’re popular right now and so we thought that would be more of a family activity and kind of fill the void of not having the actual horses on the fairgrounds during that week,” she said, noting the horse shows take place before fair week.

A free mounted shooting exhibition will also be staged by the Wyoming Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association and the Wyoming Desperados on Wednesday evening, before Lonestar’s performance.

In a change, people attending ticketed events at the grandstands will no longer have to also pay gate admission, as tickets for grandstand events will get you through the gate that day.

Free admission will continue to be offered to all fairgoers all day Tuesday — including to the pig wrestling event — and on Wednesday and Thursday mornings.

The fair, with its animals, exhibits, carnival and other entertainment, will run from July 25 to 29 — the last full week in July.

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