Luke Combs will bring his “Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old Tour” to Beaver Stadium in April for the first concert event at the home of Nittany Lion football in nearly seven years, Penn State Athletics announced on Tuesday.
Combs will perform on Saturday, April 27, at Beaver Stadium as one of 25 new stadium dates for 2024. He will be joined by Jordan Davis, Mitchell Tenpenny, Drew Parker and Colby Acuff.
Tickets go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. on Aug. 25. A presale for Combs’ official fan club members will begin at 10 a.m. on Aug. 23 and a presale for Citi credit cardholders will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Aug. 24.
“We are thrilled to have Luke Combs make the iconic Beaver Stadium part of his Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old Tour in 2024,” Penn State Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Patrick Kraft said in a statement. “Not only is this a tremendous way to showcase our stadium but will also provide an economic impact for our community and local businesses. We know the combination of this unique opportunity and it being Luke’s only concert in the state of Pennsylvania in 2024 that his fans will show up and make this one of the biggest concerts in the country!”
One of country music’s biggest stars, Combs previously played Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center in February 2020 with a show that set a record for fastest sellout in the arena’s history. He’s currently riding high with a chart-topping cover of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 folk rock classic “Fast Car.”
It’s the latest in an unbroken string of success for Combs since his 2017 debut, a run that has seen him win a slew of ACM and CMA awards, including entertainer of the year twice, set streaming and Billboard records and land all 16 of his singles and four of his five full-length albums at No. 1 on the country charts.
So it’s a big name for a big venue, one that hasn’t seen many non-football events over its 63 years.
“In addition to having the greatest game day environment in college football, we hope this marks first of many concerts and other major events that we will host in the iconic Beaver Stadium in the coming years,” Kraft said on Tuesday.
The first major concert at Beaver Stadium was the July 2017 Happy Valley Jam, a one-off country music festival headlined by Blake Shelton that drew about 30,000 fans.
Athletic department leaders long expressed interest in using the stadium for more than a gridiron, but until recently it had mostly gone back to a seven-Saturdays-a-year venue, save for a few events like commencement in 2021 (which previously had been held there in the 1960s and 70s) and providing the finish line for the annual Paterno Family Beaver Stadium Run for Special Olympics Pennsylvania.
New university and athletic department administration, however, have made it clear since coming on board in 2022 that using the 107,000-seat stadium for a variety of events was very much on the table.
In the past year, Beaver Stadium hosted the Topgolf Live Stadium Tour, a public yoga class and a movie night, as well as serving as the finish line for and an integral part of the festivities surrounding the inaugural Ironman 70.3 Pennsylvania Happy Valley. A new Tunnel Club also will provide paying members with special access and amenities at the stadium during football games and other dates throughout the year.
Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Pat Kraft also said he’s interested in hosting the NHL’s Winter Classic some time in the future.
“We’re not going into this thinking about [using Beaver Stadium] seven days a year,” Kraft said earlier this year. “We’re going into it thinking 12 months.”
