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Variety is set to launch its first Power of Women: Nashville issue and event, bringing its Power of Women franchise to Music City to honor a slate of top women country artists and industry members.
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The May 1 event, in partnership with Lifetime, will celebrate the inaugural Power of Women: Nashville honorees, who will each appear on four separate covers of the issue, as well as women profiled in the annual Women’s Impact Report: Nashville, which will highlight the industry’s most philanthropic women who have made an impact through their work.
The Power of Women: Nashville event will honor artists Kelsea Ballerini, Mickey Guyton, Reba McEntire, and Lainey Wilson.
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Country Music Hall of Famer McEntire has earned 24 No. 1 Billboard Hot Country Songs hits and has forged a multi-faceted career that includes movies, television, music, Broadway, book deals, a clothing line and time as a judge on The Voice, among other initiatives. Wilson has earned entertainer of the year accolades from both the CMA and ACM, and released her latest album, Whirlwind, last year. She’s currently headlining her Whirlwind tour, with shows in Europe and North America. With her recent projects including the Grammy-nominated Rolling Up the Welcome Mat and her latest, Patterns, Ballerini has seen her career surge on the strength of heartfelt songs and energetic stage shows, with headlining concerts at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, Knoxville’s Thompson-Boling Arena, and New York’s Madison Square Garden. Guyton recently released her latest album, House on Fire, and launched her first headlining tour last year, in addition to garnering an array of high-profile appearances in recent years, including performing the national anthem at the Super Bowl in 2022.
Nine-time Grammy winner Sheryl Crow will host the event, while actress and activist Ashley Judd will be on hand to introduce the upcoming four-part documentary The Judd Family: Truth Be Told, which will premiere on Lifetime on May 10-11, and will profile familial and personal connections within the Judd family, including Ashley, her sister Wynonna Judd and their late mother, Naomi Judd. In addition to her own solo musical career, Wynonna was also a part of the Country Music Hall of Fame duo The Judds with Naomi. In the 1980s, the duo earned 14 No. 1 Hot Country Songs hits.
As has been done with Variety‘s Power of Women celebrations in Los Angeles and New York, each honoree will bring awareness to a charity of their choice, with the publication making a donation to each charity as part of the event. Ballerini will honor the Feel Your Way Through Foundation, which helps nonprofits focused on mental health initiatives. Guyton has chosen to celebrate The Loveland Foundation, which seeks to give opportunities to communities of color, while Wilson will spotlight her own Heart Like a Truck Fund.
“The impact of these extraordinary honorees reminds us that true power lies in uplifting others and creating meaningful change,” Elaine Frontain Bryant, EVP and Head of Programming, A&E, Lifetime & LMN, said in a statement. “This year, as we bring Variety’s Power of Women to Nashville for the first time, we celebrate not only their achievements but also the power of storytelling, community, and advocacy. Lifetime is proud to continue shining a light on these remarkable women with Variety.”
Variety and Billboard are owned by parent company PMC.

As the Grand Ole Opry celebrates its centennial anniversary in 2025, the revered country music institution will highlight its 100-year history, as well as its present and future, on Wednesday (March 19) when Opry 100: A Live Celebration airs live on NBC and simulcasts on Peacock. The event will be hosted by 29-time Billboard Country Airplay chart-topper and Opry member Blake Shelton, who was inducted in 2010.
Ahead of the special, Billboard is exclusively premiering a first-look video with artists including Brad Paisley (inducted in 2001), Keith Urban (2012), Luke Combs and Kelsea Ballerini (both in 2019) wishing the Nashville staple a happy birthday and discussing the institution’s enduring impact on country music. The clip also features “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool” hitmaker Barbara Mandrell (inducted in 1972) and “Mama Sang a Song” hitmaker Bill Anderson (inducted in 1961).
“You just walk into the Opry House and you feel the history and the richness of the stories and the people that have made country music what it is,” five-time Country Airplay chart-topper Ballerini says in the video.
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Elsewhere, the artists also displayed the close-knit camaraderie the Opry is known for, as they offered up good-natured jokes. “I think it’s great that Blake’s going to host the show,” Anderson says in the video, before adding with a chuckle: “And I look forward to just watching him sweat.”
Other artists who have notched enduring country hits spanning decades will also be included in the special, which will highlight nearly 50 official Grand Ole Opry members over the course of the three-hour show. Opry 100: A Live Celebration will also feature appearances from Alan Jackson, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Ashley McBryde, Carly Pearce, Carrie Underwood, Clint Black, Dierks Bentley, Garth Brooks, Jamey Johnson, Lady A, Lainey Wilson, Marty Stuart, Reba McEntire, Ricky Skaggs, Steven Curtis Chapman, Terri Clark, Trace Adkins, Travis Tritt, Trisha Yearwood, Vince Gill, Randy Travis and more. Other fan favorites — including Aloe Blacc with the McCrary Sisters, Amy Grant, Eric Church, Jelly Roll, Post Malone, The War And Treaty and Yolanda Adams — will also make appearances.
The upcoming special spotlights how the Grand Ole Opry, radio’s longest-running show and broadcast on WSM-AM, has evolved to become a multimedia, global juggernaut through the decades, reaching fans through not only radio, but television, social media and digital streaming platforms. Since launching in 1925, the Grand Ole Opry has called several Nashville buildings home, among them the Ryman Auditorium (from 1943-1974), and has called the Grand Ole Opry House home since 1974. The special will feature artist performances from both iconic venues.
“NBC is proud to continue expanding its commitment to the genre, offering both iconic performances that highlight the impact and relevance of country music,” Jen Neal, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming Exec. VP, Live Events & Specials, told Billboard in a statement. “Opry 100: A Live Celebration reflects country music’s enduring influence on the American musical landscape, and NBC is honored to be a platform for its continued growth.”
Opry 100: A Live Celebration airs on NBC and will stream on Peacock on Wednesday, beginning at 8 p.m. ET. The special marks NBC’s fourth live television event from Nashville in the past two years. The telecast will be executive produced by Silent House Productions’ Emmy Award winners Baz Halpin, Mark Bracco and Linda Gierahn, along with R.A. Clark and Steve Buchanan.
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Yellowstone fans will remember when Beth Dutton gave Rip Wheeler a hard no after he asked her if she wanted to go to a music festival in season 1 of the popular series, instead opting for the pair to get drunk and watch wolves kill an elk in a park.
Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan — who has made country music a cornerstone of his extraordinarily popular television shows, which also include Landman, 1923 and Tulsa King — will likely have a much more positive result with his first live music event.
The inaugural Bosque Ranch Live concert will take place noon-11 p.m. Sept. 13 at Sheridan’s Weatherford, Texas, ranch and will feature up-and-coming country acts Drayton Farley, Kaitlin Butts and Jackson Dean. All three artists have had their music featured in Sheridan’s shows.
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“My career is built on the art of storytelling,” Sheridan tells Billboard. “And nowhere is the storytelling tradition more alive than in country music. My hope is that Bosque Ranch Live is a space where these stories can come to life and sets the stage for more events like it to come.”
Sheridan’s blessing has been a boon to artists’ careers, many of whom have seen huge spikes in streaming numbers following a placement on one of his shows. The only TV show Zach Bryan has ever performed on remains Yellowstone.
While this is the first music concert at Bosque Ranch, the 1,000-acre ranch has played host to a number of equine events, including the NCHA Brazos Bash, and has served as a filming location for Yellowstone and its 1883 spin-off.
Attendance for Bosque Ranch Live is capped at 500 people and there are multiple levels of participation: $500 gains the ticketholder entry, access to the grounds and a Bosque Ranch hat, whereas $1,500 gets fans a true Country Campfire experience with a night at the ranch in their RV, as well as the concert, lunch and dinner on Sept. 13, breakfast on Sept. 14, 10 complimentary drinks and a collection of memorabilia from the ranch.
For all tiers and more ticketing information, go here.
Anne Murray, who has received more Juno Awards than anyone else in history, will pick up one more at the 2025 ceremony — the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the National Arts Centre. Murray will become just the second recipient of that award, following Pierre Juneau, a Canadian film and broadcast executive, who received the award in 1989. Juneau, for whom the Juno Awards were named, died in 2012 at age 89.
Murray will be present at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, B.C., on Sunday, March 30, to receive the award, which is her second career-spanning honor at the Junos. She was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1993.
This year’s award brings Murray’s Juno collection to 26. She is followed on the Juno leaderboard by The Weeknd (22), Bryan Adams (21), Celine Dion (20), Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (19), The Tragically Hip (17), and Michael Bublé and Alanis Morissette (15 each).
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Murray, 79, received her first Juno Award — top female vocalist — at the second Junos ceremony in 1971. Murray’s collection of Junos includes back-to-back awards for both album of the year and single of the year for 1980-81. She took the album awards with New Kind of Feeling and Anne Murray’s Greatest Hits, and the single prizes with “I Just Fall in Love Again” and “Could I Have This Dance” (the latter from the Urban Cowboy soundtrack).
In addition, Murray hosted the Junos in 1996.
Murray was one of the top pop/country crossover artists of the 1970s and ’80s. She topped the Billboard Hot 100 once (with “You Needed Me” in 1978) and the Hot Country Songs 10 times. She won a Grammy for best female pop vocal performance with “You Needed Me” and for best female country vocal performance three times, with “Love Song,” “Could I Have This Dance” and “A Little Good News.” She is one of just four women to win Grammys in both pop and country solo vocal performance categories. She followed Olivia Newton-John and Linda Ronstadt in accomplishing the feat, and preceded k.d. lang.
Murray made the top 10 on the Hot 100 with her first charted hit. “Snowbird” reached No. 8 in September 1970.
In 1984, she won both album of the year and single of the year at the CMA Awards. She won for “A Little Good News” and the album of the same name. She won vocal duo of the year the following year in tandem with the late Dave Loggins (who was a second cousin to Kenny Loggins). In addition, she co-hosted the CMA Awards three times.
Murray is a Companion of the Order of Canada — the highest honor that can be awarded to a Canadian civilian. She has been inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame, and in 2008 received the Howie Richmond Hitmaker Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Murray has a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Nashville’s Walkway of Stars.
Murray has also received three American Music Awards and three Canadian Country Music Association Awards.
Boi-1da and Sum 41 are also set to receive special honors during this year’s Juno Awards. Boi-1da will receive the International Achievement Award (to be presented by Jessie Reyez). Sum 41 will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame (with Joel and Benji Madden of Good Charlotte doing the honors).
Bublé is set to host this year’s Juno Awards, which will broadcast and stream live across Canada on Sunday, March 30, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBC TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music, CBC Listen, and globally on the CBC’s website and CBC Music’s YouTube page. The show will be produced by Insight Productions (a Boat Rocker company).
Music fans are amping up for 2025 to be the biggest year ever in stadium touring and leading the pack is Beyoncé, whose Cowboy Carter Tour has posted impressive sales after a month of ticket availability. The “Texas Hold ’Em” singer initially faced significant criticism when early presales revealed aggressive ticket prices for the now-31-date stadium tour through nine major markets — L.A., Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Houston, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Las Vegas.
Some fans criticized Bey’s high prices — tickets in her stageside Club Ho-Down section cost $1,795 a piece — but they also bought a lot of tickets. Beyoncé sold more than 1 million tickets during the fan and sponsor presales and today two-thirds of the stops on the tour — all of the dates in Houston, Atlanta, Washington D.C. and Chicago and three of her five nights in New York — are effectively sold out, with Live Nation announcing that 94% of all tickets have already been sold.
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The Cowboy Carter Tour likely won’t outgross her 2023 Renaissance Tour — which ran 55 dates compared to 30 for Cowboy Carter — but she will earn far more on average than Renaissance thanks to higher ticket prices. It’s an impressive feat considering the number of A-list stadium tours competing for fan dollars this summer, including Kendrick Lamar, Post Malone, Shakira, The Weeknd and BlackPink.
The Beyoncé tour’s economic prowess is derived from its high ticket prices, priced to match what scalpers would sell the tickets for on the secondary market. Fans got their first glimpse of ticket prices on Feb. 11 for the Beyhive presale, the first of a handful of ticket presales for Beyoncé. Fans were required to register in advance for the presale and then wait to receive an email notifying them when it was their turn to try and purchase tickets for the high-demand outing.
Once the sale opened, they were given access to a wide range of tickets and prices, with nosebleeds as low as $102 while floor seats and tickets inside Beyoncé’s standing-room fan areas starting at $877 and rising to several thousand dollars per seat.
For example, tickets in the 500s section at SoFi Stadium in the upper seating area were among the least expensive for Los Angeles, priced at $166 apiece, while tickets on the floor started at $878 per ticket. The most expensive tickets at SoFi Stadium were priced at $1,422 for floor seats, while many floor tickets were priced between $1,000 to $1,200.
The tickets were aggressively priced — according to Billboard’s own non-weighted analysis, the average ticket price during the presale was $670 per ticket. The range in pricing also did cause some confusion among fans, many of whom accused Ticketmaster of using surge-pricing tactics during the ticket sale process, a practice the company denies. While Ticketmaster uses algorithms to help set prices ahead of a ticket sale, it does not adjust prices after they go on sale nor does it engage in surge pricing during periods of high demand.
While fans claimed to have seen prices change, what likely happened was that fans were comparing price points across multiple sections and seeing large variations in prices in seating sections that appeared close to one another. For example, tickets on the 100 level for Beyoncé’s June 28-29 shows in Houston saw large swings in price — the 138 section had tickets priced at $455, while just four sections over in 134, tickets were priced at $565. Closer to the stage, prices in section 102 were at $636 while tickets in section 108 were $852.
That variation in price across multiple sections confused fans who logged into the presale and had limited time to comparison shop. Adding to the confusion was that some of the least expensive tickets were first to sell during the presale, creating the perception that tickets were getting more expensive and the price was increasing, as the minutes of the presale ticked away.
Those high prices have remained strong on the secondary market, according to an analysis by Billboard. Typically, prices on the secondary market drop slightly below face value after a massive stadium onsale, but by only scheduling 30 concerts this summer, Beyoncé has created sustained demand for tickets that extended past the presale and general onsale. Tickets for her two Houston concerts, her three in Chicago concerts and two Washington, D.C. shows are effectively sold out, with only a handful of high-priced floor tickets for purchase on the primary market, while plenty of tickets are listed from secondary sellers for close to face-value prices.
Most impressive, Beyoncé has nearly sold out her first three concerts in New York (May 22, 24 & 25) and is closing in on selling out the final two concerts (May 28 & 29). Fans still hoping to score tickets will probably have the most success in Los Angeles at one her five concerts at SoFi Stadium (April 28, May 1, 4, 7 and 9).
Plenty of tickets are still available on the 500 level for as low as $105, as well as 300 level marked as VIP selling starting at $305, floor seats starting at $535 and tickets next to the stage inside the standing room only Sweet Honey and Buckin’ Honey pits.
When Island/Republic/MCA Nashville released Chappell Roan’s “The Giver” on March 12, the move extended a pop/country crossover trend that has seen the likes of Shaboozey, Beyoncè and Post Malone successfully hop genre fences.
As current as the development may be, it’s also a case of history repeating. The release comes 50 years after Freddy Fender’s “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” reigned on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart dated March 15. “Teardrop” went on to top the Billboard Hot 100 on May 31, 1975, in the midst of a crossover wave.
“That song just caught fire,” says Country Music Hall of Fame member Joe Galante, who handled marketing for RCA Nashville at the time. “It sold, and that was one thing that made it difficult for people to walk away from, was the sales numbers. Even as a competitor, I was sitting there going, ‘How the hell is this happening?’ And you start looking at the numbers and you went, ‘Well, that’s how it’s happening.’ ”
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Fender’s success was not an isolated example in 1975. From March 8 through June 7 that year, four different singles reached the Hot 100 summit while simultaneously becoming country hits: Fender’s “Teardrop,” Olivia Newton-John’s “Have You Never Been Mellow,” B.J. Thomas’ “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” and John Denver’s“Thank God I’m a Country Boy.”
When Fender was at No. 1, at least seven more titles on that same country chart made significant inroads on the Hot 100 and/or the Easy Listening chart (a predecessor of adult contemporary), including Jessi Colter’s “I’m Not Lisa,” Elvis Presley’s “My Boy” and Charlie Rich’s “My Elusive Dreams.” Additionally, Linda Ronstadt peaked at No. 2 on country with the Hank Williams song “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love With You),” weeks ahead of the crossover follow-up “When Will I Be Loved.”
Throughout the rest of 1975, the country crossover trend continued with Newton-John’s “Please Mister Please,” Fender’s “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights,” Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy,” The Eagles’ “Lyin’ Eyes,” Tanya Tucker’s “Lizzie and the Rainman” and C.W. McCall’s “Convoy.”
Then, as now, plenty of fans and critics debated if some of those titles belonged on the country station.
“For me, the answer to ‘What is country?’ is: the records that the country audience, at that time, thinks belong on a country radio station,” says Ed Salamon, a Country Radio Hall of Fame member who became PD in 1975 of WHN New York.
Salamon programmed plenty of crossover music, sometimes incorporating songs that weren’t being promoted to the station, in an effort to appeal to a metro audience that didn’t have much history with the genre.
WHN became a major success story — just five years later, the Big Apple got a second country radio station — but its crossover mix yielded as much hostility from Nashville as praise. Part of that was directly related to the corporate source of some of the records on the playlist: Denver, Newton-John and The Eagles were all signed out of New York or Los Angeles.
“There was such a pushback about what I did that I didn’t fully comprehend it at that time,” Salamon reflects. “I was taking the space that the Nashville label thought should go to one of their records on a country radio station, and I was giving it to the pop division.”
Exactly one year after Fender topped the country chart, crossover material in 1976 had subsided. The number of crossover singles was the same, but none of them had the same level of impact.
“It’s the luck of the draw,” says Country Radio Hall of Fame member Joel Raab, a consultant and former programmer for WHK Cleveland.
Two of those 1976 crossovers, Cledus Maggard’s “The White Knight” and Larry Groce’s “Junk Food Junkie,” were novelty records, distinguishing them from the 1975 batch.
“We’d seen success in the crossover the year before,” recalls Country Radio Hall of Fame member Barry Mardit, whose programming history included WEEP Pittsburgh and WWWW Detroit. “If those songs weren’t consistently coming, we were therefore looking for something else that would grab the ear, that would grab the attention of the listener, like a novelty song does.”
Crossover records would continue through the rest of the ’70s, with Crystal Gayle, Dolly Parton, Ronnie Milsap, Kenny Rogers, Eddie Rabbitt and a couple of Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson duets benefiting. In most cases, those happened when one or more label executives were enthusiastic enough to take a risk. Record companies had to be judicious since radio stations relied heavily on local sales reports for research.
“You had to have product in stores in order for people to do sales checks,” Galante notes. “So it wasn’t as simple as just saying, ‘Oh, I think I’ll go do this.’ You’ve got to get the goods in stores, and if it didn’t move and they [were returned], you got a double whammy. And you’d spent the money. So you were careful about your shots, and you didn’t go willy-nilly trying to cross over a record.”
Similarly, artists often err when they purposely attempt to cross over. It’s an issue that country learned the hard way in the aftermath of the 1980 Urban Cowboy soundtrack.
“The Urban Cowboy sound was a moment,” Raab says. “It wasn’t a trend. It was just a bunch of really good hit songs that went with a movie — and those songs, by the way, were all pretty country: [Johnny Lee’s] ‘Looking for Love’ and [Mickey Gilley’s]‘Stand by Me.’ These were just really good country records. And because the movie was so popular, [some artists] said, ‘Oh, you know, I’ll be more pop.’ And they made these really bad pop-sounding records in the early to mid-’80s.”
The 2025 version of crossover is a little different — streaming data has helped identify the songs that work across formats, influencing the trajectory for music by Morgan Wallen, Ella Langley & Riley Green, Marshmello & Kane Brown, HARDY, Jelly Roll and Dasha.
Artists are interacting more freely across genre, with pairings of Kelsea Ballerini & Noah Kahan, Thomas Rhett & Teddy Swims and Post Malone & Wallen all on the current Hot Country Songs chart. And, Galante points out, country acts are playing stadiums and arenas in major markets, unlike in the ’70s, when they were mostly in small theaters in midsize metros.
As a result, there’s less incentive for country artists to refashion their music in a play for pop success.
“Country is just so big in its own right,” Mardit says, “that they don’t need to do that.”
Ticket sales for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour are off to a galloping start. Barely a month after pre-sales began and with six weeks until opening night, the world tour is at 94% capacity across all dates, according to new stats from promoter Live Nation. The Cowboy Carter Tour was announced on Feb. 3 with 22 […]
Koe Wetzel kicked off the first night at Billboard’s THE STAGE at SXSW 2025, and opening acts George Birge & Ashley Cooke set the mood for the country filled night. Keep watching for a recap of the first night! What do you think of Koe Wetzel’s performance? Let us know in the comments below! Narrator: […]
Dolly Parton celebrated the opening of Dollywood’s 40th anniversary season on Friday morning (March 14), marking the country superstar’s first public appearance following the death of her beloved husband, Carl Dean. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Parton started off the event thanking guests for their love […]
Morgan Wallen’s upcoming fourth studio album, I’m The Problem — the follow-up to his smash hit projects Dangerous: The Double Album and One Thing at a Time — is ready, according to the singer-songwriter.
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The East Tennessee native posted on his official Instagram on Friday (March 14), stating, “Album is officially done. More news for y’all next week, but here’s a clip of one that’s coming out soon.”
With that, he offered a teaser of the new song, titled “Just in Case.”
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Wallen has released several new songs in previewing his upcoming album, including the Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper “Love Somebody,” as well as “Lies Lies Lies,” “Smile” and the album’s title track. As with some of those previous outings, his newly previewed song delves into coping with heartbreak and wrestling with the complicated, heart-wrenching process of trying to move on.
“I ain’t sayin’ that I always sleep alone, I ain’t sayin’ that I ain’t met no one else/ Done a little bit of midnight movin’ on, and I ain’t sayin’ when I do that it don’t help,” he sings, before the song’s lyrics later laments never letting oneself fully depart from the longing for an ex-lover.
“I never let my heart go all the way, every time I try I just hit the brake…I never fall in love, baby, just in case,” the song snippet continues.
Wallen’s upcoming album has plenty of milestones to live up to. Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album spent total 10 weeks atop the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, while is successor One Thing at a Time, spent 19 total weeks at the chart’s pinnacle. To date, Wallen has earned a trio of Hot 100 chart-toppers, and 16 Country Airplay chart hits.
The upcoming album shares its name with Wallen’s 2025 tour, which launches June 20 at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. The tour will include visits in Seattle, Washington; Foxborough, Massachusetts; Toronto, Ontario and more, and will feature a rotating roster of guest artists including Brooks & Dunn, Miranda Lambert, Thomas Rhett and Koe Wetzel, with direct support from Gavin Adcock, Corey Kent, Ella Langley and Anne Wilson as first-of-three across select dates.
Prior to the tour, Wallen’s inaugural Sand in My Boots Festival is set to take place May 16-18 in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Listen to Wallen’s teaser of “Just in Case” below: