KENNY STRIPS DOWN, GEARS UPS
Kenny has gone to Czechoslovakia for the most cutting-edge lights... Watched his sound techs dial in the best sound for specific parts of every single stadium... Flown the East Tennessee songwriter/
superstar over the crowd... With three years since he set foot on a stadium stage, Kenny and his Country Music Association SRO Award-winning live team have had plenty of time to figure out not just how to make things better, but make them smarter.
“People don’t realize how much thought goes into what we do, and the things these guys I work with actually think about,” Kenny marvels of a team who’s come together as he’s been solidified as a true stadium-sized headliner. “It’s always about what No Shoes Nation hears, sees and experiences, but then we’re looking for ways, too, that lets us tour smarter...not just bigger.”
This year’s tour will be entirely LED lights. Employing 126 LED Robe Forte fixtures overhead, Kenny continues his Czech alliance. There will also be 60 JDC1 strips on the floor for footlights, each equipped with a strobe stripe through the middle that can tilt via remote control. As longtime tour wizard Ed Wannebo says of the upgrade, “We now have the ability to balance the colors that transcends the aging of the ‘bulbs,’ but more importantly, making the switch to all LED drops our power consumption by half. What once took 25 amps to power now takes 13 – and the stage stays cool.”
That stage is 220 feet wide, with a strut extending well into the sandbar. World famous Clair Global Sound joins the tour for the first time, with Solotech handling all the LED lights. Beyond the new presentational aspects, the time spent designing the road gear and packaging has allowed the tour to go from 24 to 19 trucks crossing the nation.
“Kenny asked if we could shrink our footprint,” tour vet Wannebo says, “and I started thinking. We went to 22 trucks, then 21, then 20. In talking with our vendors, trying to be smart about how we pack things, the design of road cases and how we store this very expensive gear, they got creative. Ultimately, we got it down to 19 trucks carrying everything necessary for a stadium show across the country, which is a 20% reduction in what we were taking out.
“And beyond just the number of trucks,” Wannebo says, “it’s the amount of diesel we’re not burning. Across those five trucks, we’re talking about 18,000 gallons of diesel we didn’t burn this summer. Or for people who measure in money, that’s a half a million dollars of fuel.”
Kenny says, “With momentum, you just do what you do – and you never pause to really look at, ‘How could you do this a little cleaner? A little leaner?’ Because of how many times we started to put this tour on the road, we had plenty of time to ask those questions, to see how to make it smarter, stronger. And it turned out, with the lights especially, better.”
With April 23 at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium on this horizon, Here And Now 2022, Presented by Blue Chair Bay Rum and fueled by MARATHON, makes for a full-on stadium summer, plus some intimate amphitheater shows. With reigning Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music Female Vocalist Carly Pearce, five-time ACM and four-time CMA Group of the Year Old Dominion and four-time GRAMMY Duo/Group winners Dan + Shay, Here And Now is going to be Nashville’s most straight up and ready to rock tour of the summer. Blue Chair Bay Rum Presents Kenny Chesney’s Here And Now 2022 Tour Fueled by Marathon
*lineup for these dates is Kenny Chesney and Carly Pearce only
superstar over the crowd... With three years since he set foot on a stadium stage, Kenny and his Country Music Association SRO Award-winning live team have had plenty of time to figure out not just how to make things better, but make them smarter.
“People don’t realize how much thought goes into what we do, and the things these guys I work with actually think about,” Kenny marvels of a team who’s come together as he’s been solidified as a true stadium-sized headliner. “It’s always about what No Shoes Nation hears, sees and experiences, but then we’re looking for ways, too, that lets us tour smarter...not just bigger.”
This year’s tour will be entirely LED lights. Employing 126 LED Robe Forte fixtures overhead, Kenny continues his Czech alliance. There will also be 60 JDC1 strips on the floor for footlights, each equipped with a strobe stripe through the middle that can tilt via remote control. As longtime tour wizard Ed Wannebo says of the upgrade, “We now have the ability to balance the colors that transcends the aging of the ‘bulbs,’ but more importantly, making the switch to all LED drops our power consumption by half. What once took 25 amps to power now takes 13 – and the stage stays cool.”
That stage is 220 feet wide, with a strut extending well into the sandbar. World famous Clair Global Sound joins the tour for the first time, with Solotech handling all the LED lights. Beyond the new presentational aspects, the time spent designing the road gear and packaging has allowed the tour to go from 24 to 19 trucks crossing the nation.
“Kenny asked if we could shrink our footprint,” tour vet Wannebo says, “and I started thinking. We went to 22 trucks, then 21, then 20. In talking with our vendors, trying to be smart about how we pack things, the design of road cases and how we store this very expensive gear, they got creative. Ultimately, we got it down to 19 trucks carrying everything necessary for a stadium show across the country, which is a 20% reduction in what we were taking out.
“And beyond just the number of trucks,” Wannebo says, “it’s the amount of diesel we’re not burning. Across those five trucks, we’re talking about 18,000 gallons of diesel we didn’t burn this summer. Or for people who measure in money, that’s a half a million dollars of fuel.”
Kenny says, “With momentum, you just do what you do – and you never pause to really look at, ‘How could you do this a little cleaner? A little leaner?’ Because of how many times we started to put this tour on the road, we had plenty of time to ask those questions, to see how to make it smarter, stronger. And it turned out, with the lights especially, better.”
With April 23 at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium on this horizon, Here And Now 2022, Presented by Blue Chair Bay Rum and fueled by MARATHON, makes for a full-on stadium summer, plus some intimate amphitheater shows. With reigning Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music Female Vocalist Carly Pearce, five-time ACM and four-time CMA Group of the Year Old Dominion and four-time GRAMMY Duo/Group winners Dan + Shay, Here And Now is going to be Nashville’s most straight up and ready to rock tour of the summer. Blue Chair Bay Rum Presents Kenny Chesney’s Here And Now 2022 Tour Fueled by Marathon
| April 23 | Raymond James Stadium | Tampa, Fla. |
| April 30 | Bank Of America Stadium | Charlotte, NC |
| May 5* | Noblesville, Ind. | Ruoff Music Center |
| May 7 | Busch Stadium | St. Louis, Mo. |
| May 14 | American Family Field | Milwaukee, Wis. |
| May 19* | Orange Beach, Ala. | The Wharf Amphitheater |
| May 21 | Mercedes-Benz Stadium | Atlanta, Ga. |
| May 25* | Charleston, S.C. | Credit One Stadium |
| May 26* | Orion Amphitheater | Huntsville, Ala. |
| May 28 | Nissan Stadium | Nashville, Tenn. |
| June 2* | The Woodlands, Texas | Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion |
| June 4 | AT&T Stadium | Arlington, Texas |
| June 8* | Canandaigua, N.Y. | CMAC |
| June 9* | Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio | Blossom Music Center |
| June 11 | Heinz Field | Pittsburgh, Pa. |
| June 15* | Virginia Beach, Va. | Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater |
| June 16* | Bristow, Va. | Jiffy Lube Live |
| June 18 | Lincoln Financial Field | Philadelphia, Pa. |
| June 23* | Cincinnati, Ohio | Riverbend Music Center |
| June 25 | Soldier Field | Chicago, Ill. |
| June 29* | Brandon, Miss. | Brandon Amphitheater |
| June 30* | Rogers, Ark. | Walmart AMP |
| July 2 | GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium | Kansas City, Mo. |
| July 9 | Bobcat Stadium | Bozeman, Mont. |
| July 12* | Stateline, Nev. | Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harvey’s |
| July 13* | Stateline, Nev. | Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harvey’s |
| July 16 | Lumen Field | Seattle, Wash. |
| July 19* | Bend, Ore. | Hayden Homes Amphitheater |
| July 20* | Bend, Ore. | Hayden Homes Amphitheater |
| July 23 | SoFi Stadium | Inglewood, Calif. |
| July 27* | Boise, Idaho. | Ford Idaho Center Amphitheater |
| July 28* | Salt Lake City, Utah | USANA Amphitheatre |
| July 30 | Empower Field at Mile High | Denver, Colo. |
| August 6 | U.S. Bank Stadium | Minneapolis, Minn. |
| August 10* | Columbia, Md. | Merriweather Post Pavilion |
| August 11* | Syracuse, N.Y. | St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakeview |
| August 13 | MetLife Stadium | East Rutherford, N.J. |
| August 18 | Historic Crew Stadium | Columbus, OH |
| August 20 | Ford Field | Detroit, Mich. |
| August 26 | Gillette Stadium | Foxborough, Mass. |
| August 27 | Gillette Stadium | Foxborough, Mass. |