Country Concert has it figured out...

Traffic out of Kentucky Speedway (click for larger view)

The folks at Country Concert should be proud of themselves this past weekend.  While they were successfully hosting thousands of country music fans in the little town of Newport, OH, about 150 miles down the road Kentucky Speedway was having a nightmare trying to host thousands of NASCAR fans in the little town of Sparta, KY.  If you haven't heard the story out of Sparta yet, a bunch of those racing fans never made it to the event on account of traffic and parking, and for those that made it there, getting out wasn't any fun either (see picture above).  For a link to the story click here.  Sparta's population is about 230 people, which is probably pretty similar to Newport.  Coordinating the logistics of Country Concert and Kentucky Speedway for these little towns has to be a major task, probably more than I realize.  I'll give a first hand account of Country Concert having attended it personally this past weekend and tell you traffic wasn't an issue coming or going.  I also spoke to two parking attendants who were remarkably helpful and polite.  Judging from the Twitter comments I read out of Sparta Saturday night, there wasn't much polite to say about their mayhem.  And speaking of Twitter, while I was reading those Twitter comments a message popped up that Susie Brown of the JaneDear girls, one of the musicians at Country Concert, was now following my Twitter account.  Well done Country Concert!