McGraw/Hill Weight Change

The recently launched Tim McGraw/Faith Hill tour had to bypass one of the first shows on its schedule in Knoxville, Tenn., because the production was too heavy.

Thompson-Boling Arena GM Tim Reese needed to cancel the April 23rd “Soul2Soul” visit because structural engineers would not allow the 132,000 pounds of equipment to be flown.

Recent shows at the 24,000-capacity Thompson-Boling, on the campus of the University of Tennessee, include Kanye West, Shania Twain, Aerosmith/KISS, and Yanni. The “Soul2Soul” tour is in the round, but Reese told Pollstar the arena has hosted shows with stages in the middle of the venue before, including Prince‘s last visit.

“Obviously, some of this has to do with in the round because there’s more stuff,” he said. “There’s four sides of sound, four video walls, there’s a lot more cable run. When it went on sale everybody realized it was going to be a big production but as it came along and final numbers came in, we all realized that it was beyond what we could structurally hold.”

Reducing the size of the production for Thompson-Boling was reportedly considered but it was decided that it would affect the quality of the show.

Thompson-Boling is 17 years old and the newer buildings on the touring schedule might be better equipped for the production, Reese said.

The tour does visit several young venues such as Oklahoma City’s Ford Center (2004) and Fresno, Calif.’s Save Mart Center (2003), but it also has arenas like Pittsburgh’s Mellon Arena on the books, which is more than a decade older than Thompson-Boling.

– Joe Reinartz