Luke Bryan's 2026 Farm Tour opener is heading to 1846 Farms in Unity on Thursday, with the show set to start at 7 p.m. and draw about 20,000 people to a farm that had to be reshaped for the crowd.
For Aleisha Stas, the invitation turned a working family farm into a concert site almost overnight. She said the family was not really ready when it arrived and that the farm had a lot of work that needed done before it could handle a stage, vendor area and parking for the event.
That work meant clearing about 30 acres, a job the family says got help from Cleveland Brothers heavy equipment. Stas said they were racing to finish the barn in time as well, while the family kept moving ahead with a separate project to turn a 12,000-square-foot barn into a wedding venue and event center that began in 2022.
1846 Farms itself carries a much longer history. The land has been active farmland since the 1700s, when it was known locally as the Poorman Farm, and the family bought adjacent land in 2022 that became the current farm. Now it is being asked to absorb a country concert that is part of a wider Farm Tour with stops in Millersport, Ohio on Sept. 18, Brookston, Ind. on Sept. 19 and Allegan, Mich. on Sept. 20.
The scale is what makes the date matter. Tickets cost about $90, the full show includes Dasha, Kenny Whitmire, the Peach Pickers and DJ Rock, and Bryan is continuing his partnership with Bayer and Feeding America, which will ask concertgoers to bring a nonperishable food item for donation as Bayer U.S. and Feeding America donate 1 million meals across the country.
What makes this stop more than a booking is the strain it put on a family already deep into farm work. Stas said a lot of members of the community came together to help get everything to this point, and Jeff Cunningham and members of his family, who hosted Bryan's 2024 concert at their South Huntingdon farm, are expected to attend. By Thursday night, 1846 Farms will no longer just be a working property under renovation; it will be the place where the 2026 Farm Tour begins in front of a crowd large enough to test every acre the family cleared.
