Mario Vitale yelled toward the stage from ankle-deep water at Mandalay Bay and asked Tucker Wetmore to sign his shoe. Wetmore heard him, asked first if he had a pen, then looked down at the pool and said, “Wait, why do you have shoes on in the pool?”
That was enough to start one of the night’s most unexpected moments at ACM Next Wave: Country’s Beach Bash in Las Vegas on May 16, where a five-hour concert with 13 acts unfolded in the wave pool area ahead of the awards ceremony. Vitale held his red-and-white striped HeyDudes above the crowd while Wetmore, performing from a stage about 10 feet above the water, snatched the shoe mid-air with one arm and later signed it with eyeliner instead of a pen.
Vitale said after the set that this was the second time he had successfully gotten a country star to sign his shoe. He said Chase Matthews signed one eight months ago, and that he wanted Wetmore’s autograph on the wall of his house as well because Wetmore is one of his favorites. The moment fit the loose, playful energy of the beach bash, but it also showed how far fans will go to turn a concert into something personal.
Wetmore’s response was as sharp as it was quick. Looking out over the water, he asked, “Could you imagine if I fell in right now?” The line drew its own reaction because the stage sat elevated above a pool full of people, some of them wading and others trying to keep phones, clothes and makeup dry while the show rolled on.
MacKenzie Jones, who was caught up in the scene, said, “I was so scared that the eyeliner was going to get wet,” a worry that made sense in a place where the band was playing over water and fans were standing in it. The detail also captured how improvised the autograph was: not a signing table, not a backstage pass, but a shoe lifted over a wave pool and marked with makeup in front of a cheering crowd.
The event was built around rising country acts as part of the 2026 Opry NextStage class, with Dasha and Ashley Cooke hosting before Keith Urban closed the night as the headliner. That lineup gave the show a bigger frame, but Vitale’s shoe request became the kind of small, specific story that sticks because it happened in real time and could only have happened there.
For Vitale, the answer to whether Wetmore would sign was yes, and the shoe now joins the one Matthews marked eight months ago. For Wetmore, the answer to whether he would keep his footing was not something he wanted to test. In a pool packed with fans and set against a stage 10 feet above the water, he made the joke, took the shoe and left the crowd with a souvenir that felt as Las Vegas as the venue itself.
