Another record breaking Saturday night.
Luke Combs was in Knoxville this past weekend for a stop on his My Kinda Saturday Night Tour at Neyland Stadium, and as he’s already done on this tour once before, he broke yet another attendance record.
The concert, which featured openers including Dierks Bentley, Ty Myers, Jake Worthington and Thelma & James, drew 92,045 fans to Rocky Top, which broke the record for the largest concert attendance in Neyland Stadium history.
Garth Brooks previously held the record for the stadium with 84,846 fans back on November 16, 2019 when he stopped at the University of Tennessee on his stadium tour, but before that you had to go all the way back to 2003 to East Tennessee native Kenny Chesney, who drew 61,870.
Now, the record comes with a bit of a caveat: Morgan Wallen performed two shows at Neyland Stadium back in 2024, where he set the two-show record with a combined crowd of 156,161 fans. Attendance wasn’t released for each individual show, but assuming that it was roughly the same each night, Morgan drew roughly 78,000 per show – well off the single show record now held by Luke.
Neyland Stadium is the sixth largest stadium in the United States, with an official capacity of 101,915 for Vols football games. But of course concerts are a little different, with the capacity depending on the setup of the stage, how many seats are on the field and how many pit tickets are available, etc.
And while it’s a record for Neyland Stadium, the Knoxville show is still smaller than the crowd Luke pulled in when he stopped at Ohio Stadium, home of the Ohio State Buckeyes, in Columbus, Ohio last month.
That concert drew 97,367 fans, which blew out the previous concert record for The Horseshoe which had been set by Pink Floyd way back in 1994 with just over 75,000.
Oh, and he also set the overall attendance record for Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on opening night of his tour back in March.
The Neyland Stadium show is part of a recent trend of colleges booking these major tours in their stadiums to help raise money for NIL, something that’s no doubt benefited both the universities and artists like Combs, Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan who are able to sell out venues of this size. (We reached out to the University of Tennessee for comment on the impact of the concert on NIL, and will update this article if we hear back).
It also just goes to show what a powerhouse Luke Combs really is, with ticket sales no doubt benefitting from his limited number of dates this year following the birth of his third son back in February. Luke has previously admitted that his focus on touring changed after he missed the birth of his second son – who was born two and a half weeks early – while touring in Australia:
“That really shifted my focus of like, what happens from here? How do I make changes based on this thing? I dread the conversation with my son at some point. Obviously, he doesn’t know that. He’s two and a half. But I dread that conversation (with him saying), ‘Well dad, you made this record about being such a good dad, and then you weren’t there when I was born? But you were there for Tex and you were there Chet. Why was I the only one that you weren’t there for?’ I worry about that a lot.”
I mean, if you’re setting records everywhere you go, seems like there’s not really any need to adjust the touring schedule. Fans are clearly still supporting him – in record numbers.
My Kinda Saturday Night Tour Dates
May 9 – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium – Norman, OK
May 15 – Lambeau Field – Green Bay, WI
May 16 – Lambeau Field – Green Bay, WI
May 30 – Parc Jean-Drapeau – Montreal, QC
June 5 – Rogers Stadium – Toronto, ON
June 6 – Rogers Stadium – Toronto, ON
July 4 – Ullevi – Gothenburg, Sweden
July 7 – Accor Arena – Paris, France
July 11 – Johan Cruijff Arena – Amsterdam, Netherlands
July 18 – Slane Castle – Slane, Ireland
July 19 – Slane Castle – Slane, Ireland
July 25 – Scottish Gas Murrayfield – Edinburgh, UK
July 31 – Wembley Stadium – London, UK
August 1 – Wembley Stadium – London, UK
August 2 – Wembley Stadium – London, UK
