The weather cooperated and mother nature held back her storms, and all was well at the 2016 Kicker Country Stampede.
Held at Tuttle Creek State Park, the event boasted an impressive crowd for the opening night of music.
“Actually, someone was telling me today that they looked at the Billboard Top 20 and the artist we have booked this year have six of the top 20 hits,” said Wayne Rouse, Director of the Kicker Country Stampede – the state’s largest music festival.
Rouse didn’t have the official numbers for the evening but anticipates 25,000 to 30,000 people daily attending the stampede.
Amongst the crowd swooning over Sam Hunt and Dierks Bentley, there were plenty of activities in the park for festival goers to enjoy.
Jacob Alexander, operating the Human Foosball event said the lifesize game is much more successful than he could have anticipated.
“It’s been going awesome….it’s been a great success. Everybody loves it – you can bring your drink in there- the only problem is some people are getting hit by [other player’s] boots, but other than that everybody loves it,” said Alexander.
In addition to the games and music there is plenty of beer.
Drayson Cherry, Owner of Elite Hockers and in charge o
f the Miller Lite tents at the festival anticipates going through 100 cases of beer before the weekend is over.
With the abundance of drinking, there are likely to be some health related incidents involving alcohol.
“Today we haven’t had any alcohol related patients,” said Larry Couchman, Director of Emergency Services for via Chrisit Hospital in Manhattan and Riley County EMS.
Couchman said there were two incidents at the campgrounds on Wednesday night – one was alcohol related and the other heat related.
There were three trauma incidents Thursday night – one was a domestic issue and the other two were lacerations, none of which required transport to the hospital.
With the large number of people, it is difficult to “police up” everyone, but Pottawatomie County Sheriff Greg Riat says they are heavily staffed with law enforcement that are all working hard to prevent major incidents.
“We’ve got a very strong law enforcement presence; we’re very fortunate to have good neighbors to help us – the Wamego Police Department, Riley County Police Department, Kansas Highway Patrol, the FBI – and I know I’m leaving a lot of agencies out, but we have a lot of folks who come in here and help us,” said Riat.
Riat said Thursday was a decent day with only the domestic incident and a few alcohol related incidents.
“We have a very strong law enforcement presence, and you can’t stop everything but at the same time we’re hopeful with the stronger presence we have,” said Riat. “So far the crowd is really good, and the concert has been really good, so hopefully it’ll be a pretty quiet year this year – that’s what our hope is.”
Friday night features Tim McGraw, and Saturday is Jake Owen – both artists at 10:00 pm on their respective nights.