The Night in the Country Music Festival is back in Yerington starting Thursday night!
It's a tradition more than two decades in the making. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Mason Valley puts on the show every year, and this year there's a new location. The festival has found a permanent home just down the road from the old location, on a piece of land called The Grange.
"This year, for the first time ever for Night in the Country, we're at The Grange," said Nick Beaton, director of development for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Mason Valley. "This is our brand-new home, generously donated by Peri & Sons Farms, worked on by Peri & Sons Farms and Prime West Construction, and they really did a massive job bringing this all together for us. We can't wait to get people out here."
The festival has featured some of country music's biggest stars.
"We've had Jason Aldean out here, Blake Shelton, Luke Combs, Thomas Rhett, the list goes on and on," said Travis Crowder, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Mason Valley. "And we were lucky enough to catch them on their way up, and now we can say they were in Yerington."
This year's show is the biggest yet.
"We have 26 artists this year, which is the most we've ever had at a Night in the Country Music Festival," Beaton said. "We work with an awesome booking agent and our festival director, Justin Aguilar, does a fantastic job of pinpointing those artists that are right on the cusp of making it big. We usually sign them a year before the festival and, lo and behold, they're topping the charts right before they get out here to Night in the Country."
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Mason Valley has been putting on the show for the last 23 years. Crowder, the CEO, has been there from the start.
"My friend that was a board member and chief of police for a number of years came to me with the idea that we need to put on an event that would bring some outside folks into our little town of Yerington, and Night in the Country was created," Crowder said. "The first year we learned a lot. It was a great year; we had about 900 people in attendance, took a bit of a loss, but we were encouraged by the fact that everybody that did attend had such a great time they wanted to come back for more. And when we got to our second year, it just took off."
Now, 10,000 people come to Yerington for the three-day event. For some, it's an annual tradition.
"We run from 7 a.m. to 3 a.m. out here, so folks can get up and get going on their yoga bright and early in The Stockyard, and then they can end their night at 3 a.m. with DJs and live bands at the Full Moon Saloon," Beaton said. "So a lot of people will use this as their family reunion, or their friends reunion. We've got camping compounds here that are 10-15 spots big where everybody corrals their RV's and they hang out with people they haven't seen all year, right here at Night in the Country."
Proceeds from the event help the 1,500 kids and teens that call the Boys & Girls Clubs of Mason Valley a second home.
"As Night in the Country has grown, so has our organization," Crowder said. "So when you look at our footprint - being in Hawthorne, being in Yerington, Silver Springs, Dayton, all of that growth coincided with the growth of Night in the Country, they went hand in hand. So, being able to see buildings from the ground up, and kids being able to have facilities of their own, it's wonderful."
This year, for the first time, there will be tethered balloon rides, courtesy of Balloon Nevada, so festival attendees can get a birds-eye view of the new venue.
