A small town with a major event has put them on the map and the jealousy from across the nation is on the rise. With all the excitement – or is it terror – some of the locals have shown great concern and displeasure with thousands of people coming to their town.
Whether you walk through town, head out to the grocery store or happen to pop onto social media everyone is talking about the Mumford & Sons Gentlemen of the Road Stopover tour.
You hear talks of excitement and disbelief while others share their doubts as 30,000-plus concert goers marched their way to their town for three days.
The crowds, oh the crowds. What about the traffic, what about the crime, is their enough police presence, what about our schools, where in the heck are these people go to stay and why is the town going out of their way for this folk singing band from across the pond? Just a sample of the concerns (gripes) and questions that town officials have been fielding.
That was Troy, Ohio one week ago today.
The same questions were being echoed in Troy as they prepared for the event. Only three towns in the United States were selected to host such an event. The same event is embarking on Guthrie beginning on Thursday. And why yes – the same concerns are being shared in Oklahoma’s first capital by some of the locals.
“We are very pleased – I think things went as smoothly as they could go,” City of Troy Service and Safety Director Patrick Titteringon told the Troy Daily News. “We didn’t have any of the bad stuff some people were worried about – everything went as scheduled, the sky didn’t fall and we didn’t have armageddon.”
Troy Police Captain Joe Long reported very few incidents for such a large crowd and says it was a fairly quiet weekend for such a big event. The captain said they staffed their shifts different from normal to provide maximum coverage of the city during the weekend-long event.
Guthrie is doing the same exact thing.
The captain thanked other law enforcement agencies in the county and the Ohio Investigative Unit presence for their assistance.
Yep, Guthrie is working with other agencies, including the Oklahoma State Incident Management Team, who helped overlook the OKC bombing in 1994.
JAM Productions is putting on the Stopover tours and appears they know what they are doing as all the towns, who have hosted, share very similar experiences as Troy did.
Was it a picture perfect weekend in Troy? No, of course not. Is Guthrie to going to throw a nine-inning perfect game? No way. This is the World Series of events for Guthrie with many coming to town.
In Troy, citations were issued for possession of marijuana, some were found trying to jump over the fence for a free ticket and there were reports of car break-ins in the parking lot that hosted majority of the vehicles.
The Troy Fire Chief said they were not busy, but treated a small number of dehydration calls and other minor injuries.
“I think 95 percent of the people weren’t bothered by it.” That’s what the Troy Service and Safety Director said. That leaves 5 percent. It’s simply going to happen: Republican-Democrat, tomato-tomato, OU-OSU. Hey, tomato-tomato is the American English and British English pronunciations of the word tomato. See what I did there?
Whatever your view-point is, our town of Guthrie, Oklahoma is on the map. OKC news stations have been in and out-of-town with coverage, radio stations in “the city” are giving away tickets and town officials are fielding other type media requests.
Fans from across the world, local business owners and Guthrian’s have been counting down the months, weeks, days and now hours to get to Guthrie, Oklahoma and the town of 10,191 is here and waiting.
Even if its only 95 percent of them.
Friday Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros Phosphorescent Justin Townes Earle Willy Mason
Saturday Yacht Club DJs Mumford & Sons Alabama Shakes The Vaccines HAIM Half Moon Run Those Darlins Bear’s Den
Related story: Guthrie is sprucing up the place as concert arrives this week
Related story: ICS team is ready for the large crowd expected for concert
Related story: Guthrie Schools to release students one hour early for concert
Related story: Dates and times of downtown festival set
Related story: Mumford & Sons release extra tickets for Guthrie Stopover
Related story: Guthrie Stopover tour conducts first meeting at City Hall
Related story: Mumford & Sons postpone upcoming concerts due to illness
Related story: Mumford & Sons wins album of the year for “Babel”
Related story: Grammy nominee band announces concert in Guthrie
Related story: Gentlemen of the Road Stopover sells out in less than 48 hours
Related story: Volunteers sought for Stopover event in September
The town needs it. It won’t be that bad and then it can go back to being the creepy, oops, I mean sleepy little town it was before.
Creepy? You speak of what you know nothing of !
I was glad to see Langston university’s received 3500 free tickets for some lucky students.
Nice to see the GNP “on board” with JAM productions.
They “appear they know what they are doing”? Hardly. This has been the most poorly prepared event ever. They have burst into town and made completely unreasonable demands on the businesses in this town offering ridiculously low compensation for spaces and services. Then they threaten to smear those businesses and business owners who won’t play ball at a loss. It’s appalling, and I’m not afraid to stand up and say so.
The leaders of the business community and the leaders of the city should be ashamed of themselves.
3500 free tickets for some lucky Langston students? That’s the entire student population.
More than 95% of the town’s population are not looking forward to this concert. I’d wager to say only 5% of the population is excited. The rest of us just want this over quickly.
I am part of the 5%. It’s not the event that bothers me so much but the fact that our City officials have decided it is best to essentially close off downtown……….unless you pay $5. I know it doesn’t sound like much to most folks, and if you are not from Guthrie, I believe you should pay the $5……. but residents of Guthrie should be able to show ID with their local address and enter free of charge. Just my take on it. I think it might set a little better with some folks if that were the case. The idea of having to pay to walk downtown in your own town is a hard idea to get onboard. By the way, I have not seen who gets the $5 or how it is divided. I would be interested to see that information as well as what the City stands to make off the event compared to what they have spent.
As far as Troy, Ohio goes………. I have a friend that lives in Troy. She is not happy about what happened there. She said the concert was downtown and local businesses had their arm twisted to get onboard or face bad public relations…. Evidently the City of Troy had a different perspective than the residents. I think there is a strong possibility that is what will happen in our case…. the City will say it was great, the residents, not so much.
How many of us can remember Woodstock?
I know some folks in Troy, Ohio. I’ll see what they thought.
I received two replies, both positive, saying clean up was quick, and thorough, and the crowds were well behaved. Not going to the Mumford concert, but intend to enjoy all we can, downtown.
I don’t see why the town would be unhappy, I heard some business owners saw a months worth of profit in one day. Was is there to complain about? Hard work? Cant really complain about the money.
I came from Dallas and this is not a town I would ever bother to visit, but the locals I encountered were very nice and welcoming, they seemed excited to meet people from all over the country. A lot of homeowners who lived near downtown banked on parking if they had a large lot. $400 in one day just to let people park in your lot isn’t bad, no offense but that is more than some people may make in such a small town. And for the person complaining about paying $5 to enter their own downtown is ridiculous Every city across the USA will charge you for access into a festival,doesn’t matter if you live there or not. Besides I heard that if anyone volunteered for 6 hours they got a free ticket to the show, that was worth $109 or more. Lets not forget Mumford and Sons donated over 100K to the Regional Food Bank.
Overall I think this small town shouldn’t complain, just as the visitors shouldn’t complain because the town seemed to go all out to accommodate visitors, even if it made them unhappy they didn’t seem to show it. Some shops even allowed people into their shop to just sit down and cool off or charge their cell phones. That was really nice, for those shops I went out my way to buy something.
** may make in one week**
RePUr first let me say thank you for coming to our small town.
One of your comments really bothered me and it made me think that you may be a bit misguided in your thinking about our town. I can assure you that most people in this small town make more than 400.00 a week. We choose to live here and commute because it is a small town and we don’t have some of the problems that the larger areas have, the cost of living is less than in a lot of other communities not far from us and our property taxes are certainly a lot less than the communities that are to the south and north of us. Personally we moved here almost 20 years ago to raise our children in a smaller community. I don’t know about other areas, but we have many fesitivals here, you can go onto the town website and see the many that we have and typically we do not have to pay to go into the downtown area, but that is the price that had to be paid and I know many who did just that so that they could see what all was going on in our town. There was some concern, of course there would be with that many people coming into the town for a long weekend. Also there are a number of retired people who live in this town that only see what is on television and are afraid of what could potentially happen.If you watch the news everyday you see what happens at different events around the country and so yes that was a concern. You will find that most people who live here are extremely nice and that they are willing to go out of their way to help out a neighbor, or even a stranger. You make it sound like we are a backward small minded town which is the farthest from the truth. The stores that you went into are the same stores who would pull together to help a family that lost everything they owned in a tornado or a fire. They were excited to see something like this happen in our town! We were chosen out of how many small towns? Only three other towns were chosen to have this honor? What a great thing to have come to our community!!! I know that we ran into many people who were amazed by our town and loved the history of the town and the friendliness of the people who live here. For the most part there was not much in the way of complaining most of the people here were happy to have this hosted. As far as I could see, it went over very well with very little incident.
We are glad that everyone came and enjoyed the concert, hopefully you will come back and visit us again. We love having people visit our town and enjoy what we have to offer, so please do come back and visit us again!!!