2025 Cotton Fest Boasts Incredible Lineup
Ask folks in Texas who the top three dudes rising up in traditional country are, and they’re likely to rattle off Braxton Keith, Ty Myers, and Hudson Westbrook. Do the same for the women of Red Dirt, and they’re likely to come back with Kaitlin Butts and Kat Hasty.
It just happens to be all of these fast-rising performers, along with Alabama’s breakout band Muscadine Bloodline, legends Hayes Carll and Ray Wylie Hubbard, along with other greats have committed to performing at William Clark Green’s 2025 Cotton Fest At Cook’s Garage in Lubbock June 26-28. Some outfit called The Randy Rogers Band is showing up to headline a night too.
Cotton Fest boasts being “The biggest BYOB country music festival in west Texas,” and who’s gonna argue or check the math with a lineup like that? Coeds from Tech, roughnecks from The Patch, and everyone in-between will be dragging their Igloos to Lubbock for the festivities, which includes a Thursday night kickoff acoustic party with WCG, RWH, and Hayes, as well as VIP packages for the weekend. There’s also on-site camping.
Best of all, proceeds go to help fund William Clark Green’s High Cotton Relief Fund, which helps local farmers and families in need for things such as medical expenses, funeral expenses, and other stuff that impact the family farmer every day. Since 2018, Green’s raised a whopping $2.25 MILLION bucks through the organization.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit cottonfestlbk.com .
February 5, 2025 @ 7:58 pm
Jesus! BYOB concert!?! What can go wrong?!
I can’t even imagine.
Great lineup, but probably not worth the risk of attendees over-serving themselves and fighting and getting sick.
Ever hear about the night the Cleveland Indians had .10 beer night? The game was forfeited.
February 6, 2025 @ 6:32 am
Look up Jamboree in the Hills in Morristown, OH. It was a festival that started in 77 with incredible lineups for many years and had a BYOB policy as well. In it’s later years the line ups suffered because they could not afford top level talent as the only sales were ticket sales. It became a giant party with people who didn’t care about the music at all, couldn’t drink responsibly, and I imagine a huge liability for the owners.
February 6, 2025 @ 8:58 am
Oh, yeah. I live in SW PA. 1/3rd of my childhood was raised in the Upper Ohio Valley. I was too young to ever attend Jamboree in the Hills, but I recently joined a facebook page Wheeling Jamboree USA. It has a ton of old pics and videos including a 15 year old Brad Paisley on stage in 1988.
February 6, 2025 @ 5:54 pm
NOT “$2.25 million bucks”. That is REDUNDANT. Either “$2.25 million” OR “2.25 million bucks”.
By the listing, I count 11 artists performing at this festival, 2 of whom are female. That is not a very
good ratio, but it is better than a lot of country music festivals that are 100% male. I love country music, but the way that female artists are treated (by both festivals and country radio) quite frankly STINKS.
February 6, 2025 @ 7:34 pm
I googled it and you are technically correct, Paul. But $ is a US symbol. If Trig just left it as “2.25 million bucks,” who would have known it was American currency and not Pesos or the Canadian dollar?
And I think the usage of “bucks” in this his sentence is used for added emphasis.
Strange, but interesting thing to take from this article.
February 6, 2025 @ 8:15 am
A lot of festivals are BYOB, though – particularly if there’s camping. What’s funny about this one is that you can bring in outside booze but not food.
February 6, 2025 @ 8:59 am
I’d be rolling in a keg.
February 6, 2025 @ 6:07 am
Cook’s Garage is an incredible place, check it out if you’re ever in or around Lubbock, there are three music venues for different size events, a restaurant and one of the coolest collection of Automobilia signs, neons, plus a Hot Rod and Neon shop on site too.
Was there in 2019 for the Texas Country Music Awards ceremony. Lots of fun!
February 6, 2025 @ 7:27 am
Yes,BYOB can have,errr,INTERESTING after-effects,but it seems Country’s rising stars will shine at the 2025 Cotton Fest.
February 6, 2025 @ 10:51 am
Two women out of 13 acts on the lineup. Not awful. That’s two more than Troubadour Fest.
February 6, 2025 @ 11:07 am
I really like the lineups for those Troubadour Festivals. I’ve met the owner and he seems like a really good guy. He’s also getting the shaft because bigger companies have taken his music & BBQ concept and run with it. But I just can’t get behind helping to highlight a lineup if there are no women on it. It get it. It’s hard for these promoters. But I’m not asking for 50/50. Just start at making sure there’s at least one woman at least. They’re out there, and they need that support.
February 6, 2025 @ 11:30 am
Yeah I think having a bare minimum of one woman on the fest would help the perception with that a lot. It’s not like there’s a total lack of women that would fit the bill. It’s still a great lineup but that slight really rubs me the wrong way. And then the fact that they’ve deleted a number of comments (but oddly not all) from their Instagram pointing out the lack of women rubs me even more wrong.
February 6, 2025 @ 12:44 pm
Kyle:
I appreciate your kind words about me personally. In the times I’ve talked with you, I’ve enjoyed talking about music, the nature of the business, etc. While I don’t always agree with you, I do appreciate your writing and your support for country music and this community.
I can ramble on about artist schedules, budgets, combo bookings, and any number of things that can explain why there wasn’t a female artist on our College Station lineup this year. While those things would be true, they would just be labeled excuses and we’d be going nowhere.
I never — and I do mean never — purposefully leave women off a lineup. I have supported female artists throughout my entire career, and will always do so.
This became an issue after our announcement this week after a couple of artists (namely, Taylor Hunnicutt) voiced comments on the lack of women. Do I get the perception? Absolutely. Is it/w/as it intentional?
I immediately responded to Taylor to talk to us about our show in Celina, TX this fall. I became a fan of hers after I saw her at Peacemaker Festival in 2023. It wasn’t long after I received an email from her booking agent, and I immediately responded to get her availability for Celina (along with another female artist he just signed). I hope both work out.
No one said anything when we released our lineup for Celina last year with no women on the bill. Was it intentional? Absolutely not. After booking our main stage lineup (which consisted of a makeup date for Boland and essentially hometown shows for Tanner Usrey and The Wilder Blue), I had a great opportunity to book three other great bands from a good friend at an agency that helped me finish out the lineup quickly (which is a blessing these days).
My good friend at that agency is one of the few female agents in this business, for what it’s worth.
Graycie York (twice), Holly Beth (twice), Rachel LaRen, Mikayla Lane, and The Lowdown Drifters (in which Raina Wallace plays an incredible role) have all been a Troubadour Festival lineup.
The loudest public admonishment on social media yesterday was from Holly. I have twice personally handed Holly checks for playing our festival, which while I respect her opinion on this issue, it still was somewhat of a gut punch to see that from someone who has played our festival multiple times. She’s also an artist I made a point to pay and see on a Thursday night at Cheatham Street Warehouse. Was I not supportive?
We are a one-day event. Our bills are smaller than every multi-day festival around. Dates fill up faster than ever before. One day an artist will be available, only to be booked 12 hours later. And no matter who’s available, the budgets at certain slots still have to work and make sense.
Do I respect these opinions? Yes. Will I work to do better to feature female artists? Yes. But to assume it’s meant as a slight or a blatant disrespect is simply not true. And to the anonymous commenter above me, those comments were hidden, not deleted. Comments that are appropriate and bring value to the conversation are left alone, others are not. You can go back to our announcement post and see plenty of those comments that have been left alone.
On a final note: I am one of two owners of Troubadour Festival. My best friend of 30-plus years and I are self-funded. We have no other investors. I created and produced the largest barbecue and music festival in Texas (Red Dirt BBQ & Music Festival in Tyler) for six years before being furloughed and eventually laid off during COVID. I spent 15 months away from the work I loved (and still love) before the opportunity to create Troubadour Festival came to light.
We have been a two-man operator in the increasingly volatile world of festivals over the past few years, but that independence is something I’m proud of and speak of often. And I’m thankful for all of our supporters, good or bad.
And Kyle, again I respect your work here and I appreciate it. But I can’t leave without saying that this May’s festival is the ninth one we’ve announced and whether there’s been female acts on the bill or not, our independent festival hasn’t received coverage beyond one story after Randy Travis showed up to our first one (which I personally emailed you and thanked you for).
My email is chase@troubadourfestival.com. Happy to discuss this/anything else with anyone who’d like to. I’ll do my part to make myself better in this area, and I’ll always continue to support.
Hope to see y’all on May 17.
Chase Colston
Co-Owner, Troubadour Festival
February 6, 2025 @ 1:36 pm
Hey Chase,
Thanks for commenting and clarifying.
To be honest, I had no idea that there had been drama over this issue. I’ve been dealing with other drama over the last few days :). I simply responded to a comment on my own website. I wasn’t intending to write an article about Troubadour Fest’s lack of women or anything like that, though I had decided that I was not going to publish a dedicated article about the lineup since just like it sounds like y’all were, I would get swarmed with comments and accusations about being exclusionary to women, especially since I have raised this issue over the years, and have made the issue a focus of mine.
I completely understand the frustrations of promoters trying to put together profitable lineups that will sell tickets while also trying to be inclusive to women. This is a complex issue that needs complex solutions and dialogue between all parties.
Time permitting, perhaps I’ll reach out to the respective parties and try to have a dialogue that can be productive to all parties, since we are ALL folks who believe in the importance of independent music, and are all part of this community.
February 6, 2025 @ 1:53 pm
I agree with you on all fronts, and I appreciate you responding.
And I apologize for this taking over the comment section on story about WCG’s event. It’s a great festival — I went for the first time last year — and this year’s lineup is just as great.
February 7, 2025 @ 9:40 am
Not one mainstream act on the program, unless radio makes Muscadine’s “10-90” an unlikely hit. Not sure how many of those “Tech coeds” will be interested in this. Their turnout is outstanding for Zach Bryan, but otherwise they seem more likely to show up for Kane Brown, Morgan Wallen, Luke Bryan and, now, Riley Green. The hunkiness factor is stronger than the authenticity factor with that demographic.
February 7, 2025 @ 10:23 am
Yeah, this is Texas, where local regional artists are supported on the radio, and might as well be “mainstream.” Also, check out the tour dates for Ty Myers, Braxton Keith, and Hudson Westbrook. These dudes are flaming hot at the moment, and it’s definitely a hunk factor behind them.
February 8, 2025 @ 9:30 am
Tell me you don’t understand the Texas music scene without telling me you don’t understand the Texas music scene. 🙂
College kids in Texas have been more inclined to see local songwriter troubadours than mainstream radio guys for decades. From Jerry Jeff, to Robert Earl, to Pat Green, to Randy Rogers, and a ton in between and since, the Texas college scene is dominated by these types of shows while the radio guys visit Dallas and Houston for the radio fans.
WCG is an icon in the Tech world of west Texas. They will be packed in to see that lineup.