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Associated Press
A touring music festival with big-name performers is coming to the York Expo Center — and it’s expected to draw some of the biggest crowds the venue has ever seen.
Rock the Country, a two-day country and rock music festival, will stop at the York Expo Center on May 30–31.
While the fairgrounds have long been used for expos, car shows, sports tournaments and more, Rock the Country introduces a different format: a ticketed, outdoor music festival with overnight camping options, hotel packages and a lineup of national acts.
“This is the first time we’ve had a festival like this,” said Montgomery Stambaugh, marketing and communications director at the York Expo Center. “We’re excited for something new.”
Stambaugh projects about 25,000 attendees per day, a crowd size she said is typically only seen during the York State Fair.
Outside of the fair, Stambaugh said the most-attended event has been the Street Rod Nationals East, which draws around 5,000 people a day. Rock the Country is expected to bring five times that number, making it the largest standalone event in the site’s history.
Who’s performing? Acts are different each day, but Dee Jay Silver will perform on both days.
The Friday lineup includes:
- Nickelback
- Travis Tritt
- Ole 60
- Sammy Kershaw
- Little Texas
- Logan Crosby
The Saturday lineup includes:
- Kid Rock
- Lynyrd Skynyrd
- Gavin Adcock
- Mark Chesnutt
- Neal McCoy
- Hudson Westbrook
- Afroman
Why York? Rock the Country is an expansion of Rock the South, a multi-day music festival that started in Cullman, Alabama in 2012, according to the Alabama online news site AL.com. The city was home to just over 18,000 residents in 2020, according to census data.
In 2024, Kid Rock teamed up with Rock the South organizers to bring the concept to seven locations in the South for the first Rock the Country tour, AL.com reported.
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The festival’s website promises to bring “massive shows” to “small towns.”
Rock the Country organizers visited the 2024 York State Fair while scouting locations in the Northeast region of the United States, Stambaugh said.
“They saw we have a fairly larger fair event,” she said. “During this past year’s fair, they came and scouted our location and thought that we would be a good fit for this part of the country to host an event.”
The other nine stops on the tour this year are all in the South.
The festival bills itself as a “festival for We the People.” According to its website, it’s “where hardworking, God-fearing patriots unite under the open sky, celebrating the freedom we hold dear and the power of live music to connect us all.”
Billboard reported that the atmosphere at last year’s festival was “noticeably political,” with Tucker Carlson introducing Kid Rock’s headlining set. And during Jason Aldean’s, Donald Trump praised the “hardworking, God-fearing rock & roll patriots” in a video message, encouraging the crowd to “Make America Rock Again.”
Election results show Donald Trump received nearly 62% of the votes in York County during the 2024 presidential general election, but it’s not clear whether the political climate led to Rock the Country organizers selecting York.
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A Rock the South founder told AL.com that cities were selected for the inaugural Rock the Country for their ability to get people in and out of there safely, ease of access for fans to come from outside the area and feelings of a “small town atmosphere and hospitality.” He said, “There’s a lot of thought and planning that goes into it, finding cities that were receptive to it.”
The festival will bring in its own staging, production and personnel. The Expo Center will support the event by providing security and maintenance services.
“They’re a pretty self-sufficient group,” Stambaugh said.
Could this lead to more events? Expo Center staff say it could help show that York is capable of pulling off large music festivals.
“We’re hoping this is a good start, and if all goes well, we hope to attract other events like it and have a few throughout the year,” Stambaugh said.
Outdoor music festivals, Stambaugh said, usually happen from April to October. The spring and fall months would be ideal complements to the concerts held during the York State Fair in the summer.
Single and two-day tickets, VIP packages, camping passes and hotel bundles are available through rockthecountry.com/york-pa.
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