On-the-rise country star Luke Bryan — known best for his upbeat, down-home hit "Rain Is a Good Thing" and slower, love track "Someone Else Calling You Baby" — will be performing an outdoor show at Tin Roof in Columbia Saturday as a part of CMT on Tour.
The 3,500-capacity show is sold out, and will mark the Columbia Tin Roof's first large-scale outdoor show. The event will take place in the two Tin Roof parking lots on Senate Street, with the upper parking lot, which is closer to the building, housing drinks, food and tour merchandise, and the lower lot acting as the concert's floor area.
The country super-show is a part of the 10th-annual CMT on Tour event, which makes stops in 22 cities and, this year, is part of a promotion for Bryan's latest album "Tailgates & Tanlines."
Doors open at 6 p.m., and Josh Thompson and Lee Brice, both fellow country songsters, will open for Bryan. Thompson will start his set a little before 7 p.m., and Brice will take the stage around 7:45 p.m. Each of the opening acts will play 40-minute sets, and Bryan will begin a 90-minute performance around 8:30 p.m., according to EJ Bernas, Tin Roof's vice president of music and entertainment.
Columbia's noise ordinance is 10 p.m., so the outdoor show will end by then, but Tin Roof will, of course, have music, drinks and its dinner menu available in-house after the event.
The CMT on Tour's 3,500 tickets sold out quickly, and Bernas said that in the future, he hopes to be able to open the event up to as many people as possible.
"This is the first one, and we'll have a better gauge of how many people we can fit in after Saturday," Bernas said.
The tour's stage, which is 75 feet wide and 45 feet deep, also played into the capacity, measuring up to three times the size of the stage used at Tin Roof Nashville's outdoor shows.
Tin Roof's parking lots, however, are in a more open area of the Vista, opening up the possibility for citygoers to catch the show from outside the actual venue.
"We're not really sure how the city is going to handle the traffic and people standing outside the area," Bernas said. "But obviously, one of the best places to watch the show is going to be in one of the rooms at the Hilton."
Bernas said Tin Roof will not be enforcing any kind of traffic or attendance restrictions outside the parking lots' gates.
This show is the first of many outdoor concerts for Tin Roof, said Bernas, bringing in the USC crowd with bigger names and an alternative venue.
"Luke's a fan of the Tin Roof," Bernas said. "We have the capability at this Tin Roof with the enclosed parking lot to do some really cool things."
Tin Roof Columbia has also reached out to Mumford & Sons and Bruno Mars for potential future shows, said Bernas and in the case of Mumford, it's about "finding the right time."
"We're reaching out and now officially being taken seriously," Bernas said.
Doors for the sold-out country blowout open at 6 p.m. Saturday in the parking lots at 1022 Senate St., next to Tin Roof.