They Don't Know It, But FGL Sort-Of Created Country Summer

sonomacountyfairfloridageorgialine2013featuredimage

Dozens and dozens of the biggest names in Nashville have played Country Summer over the years.

But it was your support for one artist that kicked the whole thing off. This is the story of the Country Summer that wasn’t Country Summer that created Country Summer.

In August 2013, the Sonoma County Fair had an open date. They’d booked all their concerts, including Hunter Hayes and many local bands, but they had an open Wednesday night at the Chris Beck Arena that needed a performer. So they notified contacts in the concert-booking industry they had an available date at a Fair in northern California.

Alan Jacoby of Impact Entertainment saw it as a unique opportunity. “Who doesn’t want an excuse to visit Wine Country?” he said years later. “I listen to country radio constantly, I just had a hunch Florida Georgia Line had potential to be big.”

What happened next though, no one could have predicted- FGL’s song “Cruise” became the biggest song on the planet. It did 6 million downloads that summer alone, and has since reached the 11 million download mark, making it the most downloaded country song of all time.

With numbers like that it wasn’t surprising that the 5000 tickets at the Chris Beck Arena were gone rather quickly, making it the first sold out concert in the history of the Sonoma County Fair. At Froggy 92.9 we’d helped promote the show while tickets were on sale and our phones nearly broke as people scrambled to try and win tickets.

The night of the show was phenomenal. The crowd’s energy mirrored what they were getting from Brian and Tyler on stage…a few beverages may have helped both sides in that equation.

“I remember telling Tyler before the show we’d sold out, and that it was the first time that had happened at this fair,” Jacoby said. “Tyler’s eyes went wide and a huge smile came over his face. I think the crowd took their performance to the next level that night.”

The very next day, Alan came to the radio station with a simple question- “What if?”

What if we did this every year? What if it was bigger? What if were 2 days….3 days?

And from that very conversation, Country Summer Music Festival would be born. Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, Lady Antebellum, Maren Morris, Darius Rucker and many more have all now set foot on the lawn at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. And in 2018 we fittingly brought back Florida Georgia Line to perform for 10,000 people this time, at an event they helped create…whether they knew it or not.