New Arkansas Shed

Artists hitting the road this summer will have a new tour stop available with the opening of the 12,000-capacity Osage Creek Amphitheatre in Siloam Springs, Ark.

Owner Greg Smith told Pollstar the state-of-the-art, $8 million project currently under construction will give concertgoers an alternative that previously didn’t exist.

“There’s nothing like this between Kansas City, Dallas, Oklahoma City and Memphis,” Smith said. “There’s a couple of smaller venues [and] the one where Rocklahoma is held over in Pryor, Okla., but it’s pretty much a stage in a field. We’re going to be an intimate setting in a bowl.”

Osage’s construction on part of about 600 acres of farmland Smith owns in northwest Arkansas is something he has been planning for about a decade.

The project, which broke ground in November, features 5,000 fixed seats and lawn seating for up to 12,000 with a stage that is 120 feet wide and 90 feet deep.

“This stage, you can back 10 semis up to it at one time for load-in and load-out,” Smith said. “Our thought was to make it artist and roadie-friendly.”

“We’re also approved for festivals, so we can do multiple stages if we need to.”

The nearest major venue is the 19,199-capacity BOK Center in Tulsa, Okla., about 100 miles away. The 2,400-capacity Arkansas Music Pavilion, known as the AMP, in Fayetteville attracts national artists but in a different setting, Smith said.

“One other thing about our area, we’re in the backyard of Walmart and its home office [in Bentonville] and it’s a very under-served market,” he said. “There’s all this young blood that’s come to work with the local vendors and they don’t have anywhere to see a show.”

Willie Nelson’s Country Throwdown July 3 will kick off the shed’s first outdoor concert season, which will run from April through October. More concert dates will be announced in the near future.