Rock the South festival will have a new home in Decatur
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After hosting one of the largest country music festivals over the last 15 years in Cullman, Rock the South is moving just up Interstate 65 to Decatur.
It will take place in June at the Fields of Decatur, with over 150 acres of land just off Gordon Terry Parkway on the west side of Decatur. The extra space is expected to provide expanded campgrounds + parking as well as the new Fan Zone with a second stage.
The festival, at its peak, has attracted more than 100,000 people over the course of the weekend, averaging nearly 35,000 people per day.
Local influence brought Rock the South to Decatur
The move to Decatur from Cullman came largely from a local Realtor who was just doing her job. Jeanette McWhorter, a Realtor with The Grisham Group, said the owner of Rock the South, Shane Quick, contacted her a couple of years ago to help him find real estate in Athens. At the time, he was looking to do a festival like he had done in Cullman, but in another city, she says.
Although that did not pan out, McWhorther immediately thought of Quick when The Grisham Group founder Chase Grisham was putting together the Spirit of America festival in Decatur last July. He was looking to find artists to play it when McWhorter suggested he reach out to Quick.
The three of them working together on Spirit of America got the ball rolling to relocate Rock the South to Decatur.
“After that, Chase and I thought, ‘You know, this would be really cool to bring some sort of festival to Decatur, all on its own. So, we set up a few meetings, had a few talks, brought Shane to Decatur, and we quickly realized the space we were looking at was too small for what we really wanted.
Those conversations grew into what it did earlier this year, when Shane contacted me and said, ‘What do you think about moving [Rock the South] there?”
Jeanette McWhorter
Grisham said working with Quick on the Decatur festival in July had him thinking of bigger things for the city, and he reached out to Quick again.
“It was really a lot of me bugging Shane, who is a busy guy. I was like, ‘Hey this is fun! Let’s try to do [a festival] for Decatur, because we think they can do it.”
Chase Grisham, founder, The Grisham Group
Read more on our sister publication, The Bama Buzz.
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