The Univ. of Iowa's Kinnick Stadium on Aug. 27 will host its first concert, as singer Blake Shelton will headline a country music show called the Back Porch Revival. The event will benefit the Native fund, a new Iowa-focused non-profit organization formed by alum and former NFLer Dallas Clark. Actor Ashton Kutcher and golfer Zach Johnson also are on the organization's BOD (Univ. of Iowa). In Des Moines, Mike Kilen noted Clark approached Iowa AD Gary Barta "about his idea to launch the fund." But a concert at Kinnick Stadium "seemed like a big dream, given the constraints in the old stadium." There also were "noise concerns regarding University of Iowa Children’s Hospital" across the street. Iowa Associate AD/Donor & Patron Service Mark Jennings said, "This concert has a thousand moving parts, but like the wrestling meet (at Kinnick in November), we are trying to think outside the box." Kilen noted the "first hurdle was figuring out how to get a stage on the football field." Access to the field is a small tunnel, "which in the past prevented having concerts with big stages." But concert promoter Gary DeWaard "hatched a plan to use cranes to lift large pieces of the stage over the stadium rim and on the field." The venue's field turf "will be covered, so the 8,500 people expected on the stadium floor will not do any damage." The Native Fund will be "leasing the stadium for the day." Jennings said that the university "will recoup costs of security and other logistics with the proceeds" (DES MOINES REGISTER, 9/27). A Kelly Clarkson concert scheduled for Kinnick in '08 "was canceled" (THEGAZETTE.com, 9/26).
