WME’s Colvin & Seigle On Zach Bryan’s Record-Setting Michigan Big House Show

Zach Bryan is wrapping up his 2025 tour plans in a huge way, with Saturday’s show marking the first-ever concert at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. Promoted by AEG Presents, the “Big House” gig is also set to break George Strait’s record for the largest ticketed concert in U.S. history. Pollstar caught up with two of Bryan’s agents at WME, Andrew Colvin and Seth Seigle, to learn more.

Official numbers haven’t been announced yet, but Bryan’s Michigan Stadium show reportedly moved all available tickets at onsale, with more than 112,000 sold in about two hours. Michigan Stadium, which is the largest stadium in the U.S, is home to the Michigan Wolverines football team.

The 29-year-old alt-country singer-songwriter announced the sellout with a post on his Instagram page Feb. 14, saying: “You guys just sold out the biggest ticketed show in American history. I owe you my life, my humility and every ounce of effort I have. I love y’all more than any song. Well, my mama told me there’d be days like this. What a wild and rowdy damn 6 years. God bless the musicians who came before us. The respect is immeasurable. Thank you so much for having us @uofmichigan , we won’t let you down.”

Bryan will be joined on stage on Sept. 27 by John Mayer, Ryan Bingham and The Texas Gentleman, and Joshua Slone.

Strait broke the U.S. concert attendance record last year with a June 15, 2024, show at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field in College Station that sold 110,905 tickets and grossed $25,691,650. The show was also promoted by AEG Presents.

The record hadn’t been beaten in nearly half a century since the Grateful Dead played its 1977 show at Raceway Park in New Jersey. The show had a reported 107,019 Deadheads in attendance at the concert, which took place before the Pollstar Era. 

Following his extensive 2024 “The Quittin Time Tour,” which was nominated for a Pollstar Award for Major Tour of The Year, Bryan has spent the past year playing major one-off shows, including Notre Dame Stadium in Indiana earlier this month and three nights at MetLife Stadium in July. He also performed a special outdoor gig at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, the home of Outside Lands Festival and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, along with massive gigs in the UK and Ireland, including British Summer Time festival at Hyde Park in London.

The Golden Gate Park show – which also featured Kings Of Leon, Turnpike Troubadours and Noeline Hofmann – sold 50,000 tickets and grossed $9,859,314, according to Pollstar Boxoffice.

Bryan has been continuing to support his fifth studio album, 2024’s The Great American Bar Scene, which was released via Belting Bronco and Warner and includes appearances from Noeline Hofmann, John Moreland, John Mayer, Bruce Springsteen, and Watchhouse.

In addition to Colvin and Seigle, Bryan’s team at WME includes Ron Opaleski and Braeden Rountree. 

Pollstar: How did Zach Bryan’s Michigan Stadium booking come about?
Seth Seigle: We were tasked to support the vision of the artist, and a unique idea surfaced, and we were able to lean in creatively and present an opportunity for an artist for something that hadn’t been done before. … It took a lot of careful planning. The people who get to work closely with Zach were really methodical, and our management and production team and promoter partners were instrumental in achieving this because it presented some good challenges. It’s an iconic football stadium, and as I said, we’re trying to present an iconic artist, and it just takes some work to find a path. But when we surround ourselves with great teammates that we have at the agency, with management and a great partner in the artist, it’s evident what can happen.

Can you talk about one of the challenges? 
Seigle: We haven’t been [to the venue] to physically see it, but in an effort to pull this off, it takes a lot of due diligence and a lot of careful planning. And I’m half kidding, but I think people physically take tape measures out to ensure that a load-in is achievable. Because the gravity of what Zach will do this coming weekend is such that you’ve got to be highly specific, and I think we spent a great deal of time understanding what the undertaking is, so that we knew with a great deal of assurance it would work. 

Andrew Colvin: It hasn’t been done on this particular scale. So, it took a lot of extra work.

Seigle: And I think it takes a special artist to lean in and want to do this because it’s one thing to have never been done. It’s another thing to have not been done because it often warrants the right artist to be able to do it. And I think someone as special as Zach gives us the opportunity to accept the challenge of how to make a show at this iconic building work.

What can you tell readers about Zach’s vision? Was there something specific about this stadium?
Seigle: Well, I think this opportunity did present the conversation about setting an attendance record, and Zach takes a lot of pride in his career, his relationship with his fans, and I think it was really important to do something that no one had done before.

Earlier this month, Zach played at Notre Dame Stadium. What was that show like? 
Colvin: We were both there. It was magical. I think being in a place that holds such great tradition, it felt wonderful to see a concert in that atmosphere, and I thought Zach was amazing.
 
You’ve been working with Zach for six years now. How have you seen his stage presence grow? 

Colvin: Frankly, Zach’s charisma was there at the beginning. I mean, the club shows that we first saw him play, his stage presence was amazing. He presents such an authenticity that’s been there the whole time. Obviously, there’ve been a lot of new songs that have come out since those early days, and that’s been fun for fans to sing along to. The band’s amazing, the production’s amazing, but Zach’s authenticity, his charisma – it’s always been there in my opinion.
 
What were the early days like working with Zach?
Seigle: When we met Zach, he was in the service. And I think he had just played a couple of, I would say even bars, and it wasn’t until 2021 that we actually got to book Zach into clubs and then see Zach on stage. So the early relationship with Zach was somewhat hampered by COVID. 

Colvin: We signed him just maybe six months or so before COVID hit. So, there was a  long break where there weren’t any shows happening. And he was still in the Navy.

Seigle: And he had a lot of pride in being in the Navy.

There were some very unique circumstances with this artist. From clubs in 2021 to playing stadiums now, how have you approached booking dates for Zach?
Seigle: I don’t think we skipped steps. I think that we are all really proud of that. I look back at the growth of Zach’s career – we can trace it back to clubs, to ballrooms, to theaters, to arenas, to stadiums. I think that’s a really nice progression for the right artists. He’s just written incredible music and found a wonderful audience. And I think there was, fortunately, no other way to support that growing fanbase than to play slightly larger buildings every time. And I think Zach has tried to foster some intimacy in an arena and now in a stadium because I think he is grateful for everybody that’s there, and it’s not lost on him, despite the gravity of his success.

Colvin: There was one unique market that we didn’t have other steps. And it just happened this way because of tour routing, but Tampa / St. Pete, he hadn’t played that market until he played the stadium [Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on Aug. 14, 2024]. 

Any hints about what fans can expect from the Michigan Stadium show? If the production will be similar to the other shows, or if he’s planning anything special?
Seigle: I mean, I’ll tell you this. Every Zach Bryan show is unique and different and special. And other than it being in the round, we don’t have any other notes per se. We just know that every show is going to be wonderful, and we go into it with that attitude.

Zach has mentioned on social media that he’s going to break from the road after this. Is that still the case, or can you say anything about what’s next as far as touring goes?
Seigle: Zach elected to play concerts this year, and the hope is that he elects to play concerts going forward. We believe he enjoys being a live performer as much as being a recording artist. 

Colvin: The 2024 “Quittin Time Tour” was extremely long, and it was many, many shows. So, I think that’s part of the reason it’s been more of the one-off model this year. It’s because that was just a really, really busy year for the band and crew. 

Anything else you wanted to add?
Seigle: I just think it’s important to note that while we’re proud of what we do and grateful to have a great team here, success also has come from the people around Zach. He’s got great management. He’s got great production people on the road. We have great partners in AEG. And I think that it’s easy for agents to talk, but [the success] is not without the work of everybody involved.

Colvin: And we also have wonderful members of our WME team that work with Zach as well. So we’re not the only ones responsible for this success. 

Seigle: Ron Opaleski and Braeden Rountree and Sara Williams have all leaned in daily to help Zach where he is. It doesn’t solely live with just the two of us. 

Colvin: I would also say that what allows us to do this really fun job for Zach is that his music, his authenticity, especially, I would like to point out, just resonates with so many people. … That’s what we owe it to – is his art, frankly.