Latest news with #Lovelady
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Gulf Coast Jam garners 100,000 people over four days; tickets already going fast for 2026
PANAMA CITY BEACH — Despite some weather delays and a mandatory evacuation from lightning, Rendy Lovelady says the 2025 Gulf Coast Jam was a success. As executive producer of the popular country music festival, Lovelady said the event garnered a combined 100,000 people over its four days. It was held May 29 to June 1 at Frank Brown Park in Panama City Beach. "We had close to 100,000 people in the park over the four days," he said. "The event) helps the community. ... It helps feed people. It fills the restaurants up. It fills the hotels up. It's just a great thing. "It also draws international attention to our little beach here." The 2025 Gulf Coat Jam featured performances from headliners Sam Hunt on Thursday, Lainey Wilson on Friday, Tyler Childers on Saturday and Blake Shelton on Sunday. Stormy weather conditions caused delays on Thursday, and an evacuation on Friday, but operations ran smoothly Saturday and Sunday. Lovelady credited the event's success in the wake of challenges to its volunteers and first responders, as well as contributing organizations, including the Bay County Sheriff's Office and Panama City Beach Police Department. He noted ticket combined attendance for 2025 was about 20,000 less than in 2023, which holds the record as the best year in the event's history. That said, he is confident 2026 will be another record-breaking year for the festival. On Thursday evening, officials announced the entire lineup for next year, sparking a surge of ticket sales unlike anything Gulf Coast Jam has ever experienced. "When we announced our new lineup, we sold almost four times faster in the four days of the festival than we've ever sold," Lovelady said. "This next one is going to be huge." The complete lineup for 2026 is: Thursday, May 28, 2026 − Gannon Fremin, Walker Montgomery, Cooper Alan, Wyatt Flores, Treaty Oak Revival and headliner Keith Urban. Friday, May 29, 2026 − Hueston, Cole Goodwin, Brent Cobb, Jackson Dean, Marcus King and headliner Chris Stapleton. Saturday, May 30, 2026 − Hannah McFarland, Ashland Craft, Josh Ross, Ole 60, Koe Wetzel and headliner Riley Green. Sunday, May 31, 2026 − Skeez, Them Dirty Roses, Elizabeth Nichols, 49 Winchester, Muscadine Bloodline and headliner Post Malone. Attention jammers: Gulf Coast Jam 2026 lineup announced: Headliners include Riley Green and Post Malone For more information on the event, or to purchase tickets, visit visit See more coverage at This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Gulf Coast Jam 2025 garners 100,000 people over four days
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Gulf Coast Jam 2025 set to attract thousands starting Thursday
PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (WMBB) – For the next four days, Panama City Beach will be the center of the country music universe. Gulf Coast Jam 2025 begins Thursday at Frank Brown Park. This year's festival features some of the biggest names in country music. Sam Hunt, Lainey Wilson, Tyler Childers and Blake Shelton are each headlining one of the four nights. Five more artists are playing on each night, like Randy Houser, Tyler Farr and Daryl Worley. This year's jam features 'Theme nights' like 'Beach bash,' 'Denim & diamonds.' Attendees are encouraged to dress up to match the theme. Gates open at 1:30 each afternoon until the last act finishes at 11:00 p.m. Executive Producer Rendy Lovelady is expecting as many as 30,000 people each night. 'I mean, we're like a big family. People come here from, we sell from all 50 states. We literally have, I think, eight countries now this year. They come here, they sit in sections. They've come for going on 12 years, 13 years. And they just literally come and have a good time. Our whole goal is to be safe and have everybody have a great time, and listen to great country music,' Lovelady said. Lovelady said they're keeping a close eye on the weather forecasts for Thursday and Friday. While he's not planning to cancel either night, he said everyone's safety is the main goal. For all the updates on Gulf Coast Jam, click here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
26-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
The former Man City coach aspiring to be the next Graham Potter via ‘difficult circumstances' in Turkey
Kieron Lovelady had a pretty good gig. At the start of this year, he was coaching in the Manchester City youth system — an impressive career step considering he's only 27. He was working under this generation's best manager, at England's dominant club of the past decade, within a multi-club group known for giving chances to coaches already in their network, preparing some of the best young talent in the country for senior football. Advertisement Then, in January, he was offered a first-team coaching job at Adana Demirspor who, to say the least, were in a sticky spot. They were bottom of the Turkish Super Lig, but that was just the start of their problems. Thanks to an array of financial and administrative problems, they had already been given two separate points deductions, which put them on -1 for the season. They were also under a transfer ban and their most experienced players had left in the previous couple of transfer windows, so their squad had an average age of just over 21 with no player older than 28. Relegation more than loomed. For Lovelady though, there was only one answer. 'I felt it would be the opposite, really,' he said when asked by a slightly incredulous Athletic whether he thought diving into such an impossibly difficult situation would be detrimental to his fledgling coaching career. 'The circumstances are extremely difficult, but we're all thriving in it because it's an amazing challenge to be a part of.' You certainly can't accuse him of taking the easy route. Moving to Adana, a city in the south of Turkey, about 575 miles from Istanbul and not far from the Syrian border, wasn't an entirely random move. In January, Mustafa Alper Avci became the club's fourth manager of the season (appointed by their second president of the campaign, after the first resigned), moving from his post in the City academy, where he had worked with Lovelady for a couple of years. The pair had developed a good relationship in that time, so when Alper Avci got the call from his homeland, he brought Lovelady with him as a first-team coach, along with Dean Holden — formerly Charlton manager and Steven Gerrard's assistant at Al Ettifaq — as his assistant manager. 'He'd watched a lot of my sessions at City and was very impressed by my delivery, my ideas and the way that I see the game. He always said if an opportunity arose for him to go back to Turkey in the Super Lig, he'd love me to go with him. And here we are.' Advertisement Things haven't become any easier since they arrived. Their second game in charge was at Galatasaray, which you may have heard about: the Adana Demirspor team was withdrawn from the pitch by their president, Bedirhan Durak, in protest against what a statement claimed were 'systematic, deliberate referee errors and injustice'. A bemused Lovelady watched as a farce played out where club officials tried and, for 20 minutes at least, failed to get the message across that they were withdrawing from the game. Even by the chaotic standards of Turkish football, it was an extraordinary scene, and for those involved, you can certainly file the episode under 'not ideal'. Not least because Galatasaray weren't just awarded a 3-0 walkover, but Adana Demirspor were given another points deduction, bringing the grand total deducted for the season up to 12, meaning that at the time of writing, they are on -2. There's no point pretending the season will end in anything other than relegation – they are 21 points behind second-bottom Hatayspor – but from Lovelady's perspective, it is all a learning experience. 'I thought it would be an amazing opportunity to learn and progress. Obviously at my age, and given my coaching experience in academies, it'll be something that I'll always be able to refer back to. 'A job in a top-10 European domestic league was just an opportunity that I had to take. I feel that a long way down the line all these challenges will benefit me, to be able to say that I've worked in these conditions. Hopefully, it will stand me in really good stead for my future career as a first-team coach and maybe one day as a manager.' Lovelady's career path hasn't been conventional. He was a decent amateur midfielder as a teenager, good in the local leagues and captain of Southport Trinity, a club in the Mid-Lancashire League (effectively the 15th tier of English football), but it was fairly clear quite early on that he wasn't going to make it as a professional player. So he turned his attention to coaching. Advertisement 'Even at a young age, I was always involved in the conversations around what team we were playing,' he says. 'I always felt one day that it'd be me picking the team. The first thing I'd be doing is looking at what formation both teams were playing. I don't know why that is, but that's just the way I've always been. 'I started to take that side of the game a lot more seriously and started to think about what my next steps will be after school, eventually to pursue a full-time career in coaching, which is what I'm doing now.' He started out as a coach at Southport, winning a league title with their under-18s side, while at the same time studying at the Robbie Fowler Academy, where he later worked full-time, absorbing information from the other coaches around him and from the Liverpool legend himself, who Lovelady still speaks to. 'He's always there if I need to speak to him,' he says. 'He'd put on the occasional finishing session for the forwards and it was great to be able to pick his brains. Anything you can take from him is worth it and you can pass the pieces of information on to forwards that I work with today.' A post shared by ROBBIE FOWLER ACADEMY (@fowleracademy9) From there, Lovelady moved to academy coaching jobs at Rochdale, Preston North End and eventually Manchester City, starting work there as a part-time coach in their select programme, which is essentially the feeder system into their academy, before moving into a full-time job when one became available in the academy itself, when he was just 25, working with school-age kids. It's remarkable that he has gone from working with 11- or 12-year-olds to coaching a professional men's side. Lovelady looks like he can't believe it himself. He is, as far as we can tell, the youngest English first-team coach currently working in one of Europe's top-10 leagues. He's young but not necessarily inexperienced as a coach: as he points out, he's been doing this for over a decade now. His youth might be seen as a weakness to some, but while he was working in those various academies and indeed with a squad as young as Adana Demirspor have now, it's actually an advantage to be of a similar age to the players he coaches. 'I've always been able to build fantastic relationships with players,' he says. 'I can relate to them.' Advertisement Given his unconventional coaching route so far, the name that immediately comes up when asked about his coaching influences is perhaps unsurprising. 'The one that I always go to is Graham Potter,' he says. 'I just love the story of how he started in the Swedish fourth division and he took Ostersund all the way up to the top division, got them into Europe and played against Arsenal. 'I love how he was prepared to go over to Scandinavia and start right at the bottom and build his way up.' The ultimate goal is to be a manager. Where? Who knows. Lovelady has already demonstrated that he'd be prepared to go to places and into situations where others wouldn't. When? Again, who knows. For now, he's got plenty to keep him occupied. GO DEEPER Graham Potter the football manager: A creator of structures in which individuals can shine (Top photo courtesy of Adana Demirspor)
BBC News
25-02-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Lovelady's pursuit of Potter and Still's pathway
"Although I am young at 27, I've been coaching for 10 years. I started at 17."Kieron Lovelady's pathway to coaching is still rather unusual in the football world, not just because of his an industry dominated by managers with a background in playing professional football, very few make it to the very top having plied their trade as a coach from the very Lovelady has done things differently - and it has led to his current role as assistant manager of Turkish Super Lig side Adana to BBC Radio Lancashire, he charted his journey from youth football to one of the biggest leagues in Europe, with some help from Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler's academy along the way. Watch BBC Radio Lancashire's interview with Kieron Lovelady, external Given his coaching journey started young, Lovelady's pathway began in his teens while he was still playing Scarisbrick, Lovelady began coaching at Southport Trinity having gradually become more interested in that side of the game rather than playing."At 15 or 16, coming to the end of school, I wasn't playing for a high-profile academy, I knew my route was always going to be through coaching and hopefully one day being a manager in my own right as well," he said."I've been quite fortunate. I took over the team that I always played for then I went to Robbie Fowler's football college as a student initially."In my second year there I took over Southport's under-18 youth team. I instantly found opportunities for myself. "While I was studying at the college, I took my badges and after I finished my course there, instead of going to university straight away, I was fortunate enough that they offered me a job. So I was in a position where I was living and breathing it."Opportunities with Rochdale and Preston North End followed before he landed at Manchester City, where he spent three years and travelled around Europe coaching in their youth setup."I've had some amazing experiences working in academy football," Lovelady continued."The three seasons [I was] at Manchester City was an amazing experience in terms of everything that comes with being a coach - the facilities, the academy structure and the opportunity to go on tours abroad." Lovelady's time at City came to an end earlier this year when he made the move to Turkey's Super Lig to join Adana Demirspor boss Mustafa Alper Avcı as his first-team has since been joined by former Charlton Athletic and Bristol Rovers boss Dean Holden in the Turkish side's backroom who worked with Alper Avcı at City, has his work cut out with Demirspor bottom of the Super Lig having won just twice in 24 league games this season."The whole thing's a massive challenge. We've come in at the bottom of the table. The club has had a transfer ban and points deducted. That in itself is a big challenge," he said."Obviously you accompany that with the language and trying to get the players organised and it's very difficult. We're giving it our best go."Demirspor have picked up one point from the four matches that Alper Avcı has taken charge of and are deep in a relegation battle, but Lovelady has seen the positives among their squad as they try to salvage some pride for the remainder of the season."We've noticed that the players in the group have got really good quality and we've watched so much footage of previous games before we came in and the work and shape out of possession is something we've really got to tidy up," he continued."We've got to make the group more compact and organised. So we've been working on the training field so hard to make sure we're organised and trying to stay in games." Lovelady, unlike many coaches in football, did not have a successful career playing the game before entering has also picked up his first job in senior football abroad, a path that traditionally few English coaches has, however, followed in the footsteps of West Ham United boss Graham Potter and Lens boss Will Still, who forged their managerial careers in similar fashion."There's a big conversation to be had about the lack of opportunities for English coaches but English coaches have got to be prepared to do the hard yards in order to get those jobs," Lovelady said."I'm a huge fan of Graham Potter and what he did in his career, going to the lower leagues of Scandinavia and building his way up from there."Years later he comes back to take the Swansea job and did a fantastic job with them, went to Brighton and then landed a huge opportunity at Chelsea."He would be the perfect example of someone who can go and do the hard yards and opportunities have fell in place for him. So why couldn't they fall in place for someone like me or any other young coaches watching and listening now?"
