Four Headlining Concerts at Iowa Speedway
In our Production team’s 35-year history, there has never been a larger two days of activity than recently at the Hy-Vee Indycar Weekend at Iowa Speedway, located just outside of the state capital of Des Moines.
Not only would there be two Indycar races hosted at the Speedway over the weekend, but each race would be bookended with a pair of “headliner” concert acts that we were tasked with delivering. Three-time Grammy-winning country musician Tim McGraw played pre-race on Saturday, while CMA-award winning duo Florida-Georgia Line closed out the first night post-race.
On Sunday, the husband-and-wife duo of Gwen Stefani (pre-race) and Blake Shelton (post-race) took to the custom built stage, wheeled onto and off the track in a matter of minutes, only cementing our ability to create “magic” in non-traditional stage locations.
“When we first heard of IndyCar and Hy-Vee’s plans, we didn’t think it was real. Four headlining acts in one weekend at one track was unheard of!” Production CEO Jay Howard said with a laugh. “Then they announced it, and after reading it a few times, we realized we were in for a truly unprecedented weekend.”
The concert came to life thanks to a team of 80 crew including stagehands and team members from Digital Stage Solutions. In total, it took seven staging and production tractor trailers, five shipping tractor trailers, a dozen tour buses, five mobile office buildings, four RVs, and four catering operations to bring the “unprecedented” weekend to life.
