UPDATED: Ticket Holders Irate Over Lineup of Gordy’s Hwy 30 Texas Festival

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UPDATE: 9/16/2024 4:00 CDT: After Saving Country Music first posted this story Monday morning, Thursday night headliner Reckless Kelly pulled out of Gordy’s HWY 30 Music Fest Texas. Then Monday afternoon, Gordy’s HWY 30 Music Fest Texas officially announced it is postponing the 2024 festival. A statement from Hwy 30 Fest reads,


To our incredible #Hwy30 family,

As you know, we’ve always been the “People’s Festival” from day one, and we want you to know we’re listening.

After much deliberation with our team, we have made the extremely difficult decision to postpone this year’s music fest in Fort Worth. While we were overjoyed to welcome so many exciting and talented artists to the stage, we want to ensure that we also take the time to slow down, regroup and come back stronger than ever in 2025.

As many of you know, Gordy has been facing some significant health challenges, and right now, his focus needs to be on rest and healing. We know how much this event means to you all. Thank you for your patience, understanding, and unwavering support. Ticket holders will also be emailed directly. Stay tuned, stay safe, and we’ll see you next year!

UPDATE: 9/16/2024 12:53 CDT: Reckless Kelly has withdrawn from Gordy’s Hwy 30 Music Festival as the Thursday night headliners. The band says in a statement, “Reckless Kelly regrets to announce that, due to circumstances beyond our control, we will not be performing at Gordy’s HWY 30 Music Fest Texas in Fort Worth on 10-17-24. We send our best to Gordy and the HWY 30 family, and wish the artists and attendees an successful event.”

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Original Story Below:

For the last six weeks or so, Saving Country Music has been monitoring and investigating the drama-filled lineup rollout of “Gordy’s Hwy 30 Music Festival Texas Edition” set to happen for the second year at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, October 17th-20th. After endless delays, warning signs, excuse videos from hot tubs, and a (potential) heart attack suffered by the promoter, the lineup has finally been revealed … and you could almost laugh at how ridiculous some of the names included are.

Folks who purchased non-refundable early bird tickets during last year’s event, they’re not laughing though. Considering this is supposed to be a Texas country festival, they are extremely angry and frustrated after anticipating a somewhat similar experience to 2023. This includes many patrons from around the United States who booked travel arrangements and vacation time to attend.

The headliners for last year’s inaugural Gordy’s Hwy 30 Texas Edition were Zach Bryan, Cody Jinks, Koe Wetzel, and Dierks Bentley—four indisputable headliners in country. The undercard also included Gary Clark Jr., Shane Smith and the Saints, Ashley McBryde, Charles Wesley Godwin, Whitey Morgan, and so on. It was a massive 4-day blowout with one of the best lineups in country music all year.

What will the lineup be in 2024? After waiting until the last possible minute to reveal the headliners (five weeks out), Gordy’s Hwy 30 Music Festival Texas Edition has announced three-time accused rapist Nelly as the Friday headliner, Vanilla Ice and Color Me Badd as Saturday headliners, along with (strangely) Reckless Kelly for Thursday night, and ’90s country band Lonestar on Sunday.

For those who are unaware, Gordy’s Hwy 30 Music Festival has been a mainstay event for both big independent country artists and mainstream up-and-comers in Filer, Idaho since 2014. Promoter Gordy Schroeder started the event as a fundraiser about 16 years ago, and it slowly morphed into the Hwy 30 Festival. This year the June 19-22 festival featured Morgan Wade, Charles Wesley Godwin, The Steel Woods, as well as mainstream names like Chase Rice. The festival has always catered to more of a country rock sound.

But it appears that Gordy bit off a bit more than he could chew for the 2023 event down in Texas. Unable to pull together a comparable lineup to last year—or event to the smaller Idaho fest—he’s turned to washed up hip-hop headliners, perhaps hoping they will be comparable enough draws to stave off a class action lawsuit.

The 2023 Lineup:



Current ticket holders first started to feel uneasy when the first rounds of performers for 2024 were announced, and they were all mostly local bands and artists, including a couple known primarily as cover bands. No offense to these performers, but they did not size up to last year’s undercard of Mike and the Moonpies, American Aquarium, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and Cody Canada and the Departed. But since tickets were non-refundable, patrons had no other choice but to hold out hope the lineup would improve over time.

Then there were endless delays with announcing any of the headliners. Gordy’s wife Meg fell ill and was in the hospital, which was cited in part for the delays. But when Reckless Kelly was announced for the Thursday night headliner, people really started to sense a bait and switch was under way. Again, no offense to Reckless Kelly, but they’re just not on the level of Zach Bryan or Dierks Bentley.

Gordy kept posting videos of himself hanging out in a hot tub, promising that more information was coming. On August 26th, Gordy said, “I know everyone’s wanting answers and everything. Here’s what we got. I need you to mark your calendars because September 6th … mark your calendars, September 6th. All of the questions … everything you’ve been asking for, you’re gonna get. On September 6th. Okay? I know that maybe not exactly what you wanted to hear. But September 6th is the day.”

This was already after endless delays and frustration by ticket holders, who Gordy always referred to less like paying patrons, and more like “family” in his personal, and very personality-driven marketing style. Then when September 6th came, Gordy claimed to have a heart attack, and pictures of him in the hospital were posted. There was also no mention of headliners or lineup additions. Then finally over the last week, the festival has revealed the headliners of Nelly, Lonestar, as well as the “I love the ’90s Tour” with Vanilla Ice, All 4 One, Dj Kool, Color Me Badd, Tag Team, and DJ Scribble.

Saving Country Music reached out to the Texas Motor Speedway on numerous occasions as it looked like the festival might be canceled, as well as the booking agents for multiple bands that performed both at the festival in Texas last year and the festival in Idaho this year, attempting to find out if there were any issues with payment to the bands or other problems.

Nobody is talking. This is a common dilemma when it comes to festivals. Debtees do not want to go on record bad mouthing a promoter since they’re holding out hope for eventual payment for their clients. However, Saving Country Music has heard from a source that claims there are multiple entities that were not paid from the previous year’s festival in Texas. Meanwhile, ticket holders were left in the dark since nobody wanted to talk about it publicly.

It’s not uncommon for festivals to sell discounted tickets for the next year during the current year’s festival. Often this helps to pay down all expenses for the current year. But if expenses run too high and people do not get paid, it results in a ponsi type scenario where future tickets sales are constantly floating past debt.

For Gordy’s part, he seems to be someone who wants to support the music and throw a big party, and perhaps his heart was in the right place putting on a festival in Texas. But he might have gone too big with his Texas edition fest in 2023. Potentially, booking agents in the country space and at the big agencies decided to stop working with him, and so he had to switch genres to secure his headliner talent for 2024.

If there is any consolation for ticket holders, there are still a decent amount of good bands on the lineup. Micky and the Motorcars, Tylor and the Train Robbers (all from Idaho like Gordy), as well as The Lowdown Drifters, Wes Shipp, and Joe Stamm Band are all on the 2024 lineup. But nobody should be under the illusion that the bands are in any way comparable to what the Texas Edition of Gordy’s Hwy 30 Fest was in 2023, or that Nelly and Vanilla Ice are in any way related to Texas country music.

Ticket holders deserve a real explanation of what happened. And instead of booking bad hip-hop acts for a country fest, Gordy should have scaled back the festival to a more sustainable level, and tried to build it back up over time, and offered refunds to ticket holders.

The health issues Gordy and his wife suffered may be real and serious. But as the most popular comment under the full festival lineup states perfectly,


Please do not take our disappointment personally, this is about your business, not your health and wellbeing; I’m sure we all want the best for you and your families, and I will be sending all my good everything your way! However, if you were a music fan purchasing tickets based off last years line up and then this was finally released 5 weeks before the festival, I’d know you feel our disappointment. Owning the issue would go a long way with your fans, I’m sure, but y’all are not even acknowledging everyone’s concerns!! Treating your fans like friends and family goes both ways, we can be here for yall and be understanding, but you’ve gotta do the same for us in order for us to remain fans. I’ve heard nothing but incredible things about the two of you on a personal level, but as a fan that is not in the inner circle, I feel like I’ve been cheated out of money that I work hard for and time spent planning to attend an event that is not as advertised. I’m crushed.



© 2024 Saving Country Music

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