Music

It Looks Like This Is How We Concert Now

Granger Smith Shares Photo of His "Properly Executed Socially Distanced Concert"
by 7/6/2020

It may not have been easy to pull this off, but Granger Smith did it.

He wanted/needed to play a live show, but with the current safety measures in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he had to be very, very careful. Especially in Texas, where Smith lives and where this concert was held.

And the drone does not lie.

Smith’s show over the holiday weekend at the Dell Diamond baseball stadium in Round Rock, Texas looked nothing like the concerts we’ve seen before, but it looks exactly like the solution we’ve all been hoping for. Fans were perfectly spaced out on the baseball field and in the stands. Nobody was crowded up around the stage. And when the show was over, Smith earned a round of virtual applause from people who weren’t even at the show.

Fellow country artists, country radio personalities, music industry executives and most importantly, fans, reached out to reply and retweet Smith’s post about the show praising him for working hard to find a way to make live music possible and safe again. Many of the responses were about how other artists should follow Smith’s lead, which came just a week after the Chase Rice show in East Tennessee that angered so many people for its lack of social distancing.

And Smith’s timing could not have been better. Just two days before his Saturday show (July 4), Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order requiring all Texans to wear a face covering in public in counties with 20 or more positive coronavirus cases, because of the record-breaking surge in new cases of the coronovirus across the Lone Star state.

Before the show started, Smith shared a video of the preparations taking place to make sure each fan pod was 6′ X 6′ with a 6′ clearance on all sides. According to the Round Rock Express website, other safety measures at the show that night were:

1. Guests were required to wear masks at Dell Diamond while entering, exiting and moving around the ballpark (but they could remove the masks when eating, drinking or sitting in their ticketed seat/pod).

2. The stadium increased the frequency and scope of cleaning and sanitizing between events as well as between guests at events. Hand sanitizing stations for public and staff use had been added to high-traffic areas. Dell Diamond implemented the use of industrial-grade, mobile sanitization units to disinfect surfaces throughout the stadium prior to, during and after the event.

3. In addition to the pods on the field, every other row in the seating bowl had been removed from inventory and all groupings of seats were six feet or more away from the next grouping of seats.

4. The stadium was operating at 25 percent capacity or less.

5. Walkways and concourses allowed for one-way pedestrian traffic only.

6. Restrooms with multiple entrances had one-way entrances and exits, and touchless faucets were available in all restrooms. Every other sink and urinal station were covered to allow for proper distancing.

Alison makes her living loving country music. She's based in Chicago, but she's always leaving her heart in Nashville.
@alisonbonaguro