Tyler Childers Plays Arena Show for 20 Fans, Gives Them $1,000

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photo: Emma Delevante (left), Kyle Coroneos (right)


Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. That’s exactly what 20 Tyler Childers fans got on Wednesday, September 17th after they donated to a fundraiser Childers was running for the Shriner’s Hospital, operated through his fan club dubbed the Hickman Holler Hunting Club.

Those who signed up for the club ahead of the release of Tyler’s new album Snipe Hunter had first dibs on seeing Childers perform at the intimate Turkey and the Wolf Ice House in Nashville in late July, as well as Dinosaur World in Kentucky in August. As special as those events were for fans who were able to attend, what happened last week topped them all.

Ten lucky folks who donated to the Shriner’s Hospital fundraiser were randomly selected, and told they could bring a Plus One to a secret show happening Wednesday afternoon. They were told to meet at another location, because the site of the surprise concert was undisclosed. Lo and behold, it happened to be Lexington’s Rupp Arena where Tyler Childers has played some legendary shows, but none like the one these 20 lucky souls were about to witness.


Turns out Childers had rented out Rupp to do a final practice with his new stage setup for the tour after the release of Snipe Hunter. The full stage was in place, the Food Stamps were all there, and Tyler Childers performed a full concert of music, including all the stage banter and other stuff you might see at one of his live shows. The only difference was the there were only 20 select people there to witness it, save for the crew.

Oh and it gets better. Not only did this lucky group get to meet Tyler Childers. He also gave the original 10 selected from the Shriner’s donation drive along with two individuals there representing Shriners $1,000 dollars each, coinciding with the expletive-fueled verbiage of the opening track of his new album, “Eatin’ Big Time.”

The lucky attendees all congregated in a green room at Rupp where they saw Tyler briefly as he meet with the two ambassadors from the Shriner’s Hospital. Then they all walked out onto the floor of the Rupp Arena where they posed for a few group pictures.

“I actually got to meet Tyler and say hello,” Scott Lowery from Lexington tells Saving Country Music, who was one of the lucky few selected. “And then they said, ‘Okay, let just have the people who were selected get in a picture. So we were standing there, and right when we were done taking that picture, I see Tyler hand money to the guy beside me. Then he just looks at me and hands me $1,000. It was just other-worldly because I didn’t really know what was happening.”

Lowery was scheduled to leave on a trip that day, but postponed it after he was selected and pulled his 13-year-old daughter and massive Tyler Childers fan out of school to attend the event with him.

“None of us could even jump up and down because we were just so confused,” says Lowery. “Then you’re connecting it in your head about the song. Oh, blow $1,000. Then the guy who was running the whole thing took us to the lower bowl and said, ‘You can sit anywhere you want up here.’ So we just sat directly across from the stage and watched the whole concert. We had to leave our phones in the green room.”

In Nashville, there are industrial stages performers can rent out that simulate the stages of big arenas as they practice for tour. But apparently in Kentucky, Childers is given keys to the real deal. According to attendees, the set list pretty much mirrored what Childers performed at Healing Appalachia this last weekend where Childers helped raise even more money for a good cause.

“About halfway through, I thought ‘I have to be dreaming,'” Scott Lowery says. “None of this makes sense. I’m in Rupp, got my little girl with me, Tyler is putting on a show for 20 people, I have $1,000 in my pocket that he handed me. I was more like a silly dream that you make up. It was too surreal to go, ‘Yeah, this is normal.’ It wound up being the coolest thing not having phones because I just watched it all. It was definitively a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Just beyond cool.”

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