See baseball field transform into soccer field at Covenant Health Park
Watch as the Smokies baseball field and retractable pitching mound transforms into One Knoxville SC’s soccer field at Covenant Health Park
- The Knoxville Smokies’ stadium is hosting its first music festival, featuring Boosie, CitiLimitz and others presented by WJBE.
- The event is part of a mission to make the new multiuse stadium an inclusive venue for the entire community.
- The stadium was built on the site of a former Black neighborhood, and developers have prioritized honoring that history.
- The venue continues learning more about how to convert the field between baseball, soccer and concert configurations.
A little more than a month has passed since the first Knoxville Smokies season wrapped up at Covenant Health Park, but the stadium schedule is full for the rest of the year and picks up this weekend with the venue’s first music festival.
The Smokies are hosting the inaugural Knoxville Music Festival at the ballpark Oct. 18, with performances by Boosie, CitiLimitz, Cupid, Pokey Bear, Lakeside, Tabu and others. The event will be presented by Jammin’ 99.7 WJBE, the city’s only Black-owned radio station, and tickets cost between $60 and $125.
The festival just added CitiLimitz to the lineup. The group, comprised of three brothers from Chattanooga, recently competed on “America’s Got Talent” and performed the national anthem at the Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Kansas City Chiefs game Oct. 6.
“This is a show for both the young and the old,” WJBE owner Joe Armstrong told Knox News. “It’s for the whole family.”
Doors open at 3 p.m., and performers take the stage starting at 4 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at Knoxvillemusicfestival.com through Ticketmaster and at a handful of local organizations and stores, including Beck Cultural Exchange Center, Pete’s Fashions, Smashmouth BBQ and Wilson Corner Market.
A portion of the proceeds will go to the Tank Strickland Foundation.
Knoxville Music Festival example of new stadium as the ‘people’s park’
The concert is a continuation of the Smokies’ mission of inclusivity at the ballpark, designed as a multiuse stadium that can host a variety of events for all of Knoxville to enjoy. The stadium was built on what was once known as The Bottom, a neighborhood that supported mostly Black families and businesses until they were forced to relocate amid the city’s urban removal policies between 1959 and 1974.
Developers prioritized pulling from a pool of diverse contractors when building the stadium and organized the creation and installation of statues honoring Knoxville’s Black baseball history, including the city’s former Negro League team, the Knoxville Giants.
“We have been supportive since the inception of putting the stadium in downtown Knoxville,” Armstrong said. “We were an advocate for local contractors and vendors getting involved.”
The stadium has “done more than lots of people’s expectations,” he said, and is the “anchor” for redevelopment in East Knoxville. Knoxville Music Festival is the first event of its kind to be held in the multiuse venue, and it’s an important step in putting a spotlight on the stadium’s versatility.
Having Knoxville soul food restaurant Jackie’s Dream joining the stadium’s restaurant lineup, as well as selling Knoxville Giants memorabilia in the team store, shows the intentionality behind the Smokies’ push for inclusivity, Armstrong said. Team owner Randy Boyd has repeatedly referred to the new stadium as “the people’s park.”
“They are maintaining the history,” Armstrong said. “They’ve done what everyone in Knoxville wanted to do − get on the other side of James White Parkway.”
Armstrong hopes to bring the Knoxville Music Festival to the stadium every year to “help with the flavor of Knoxville.”
Lessons learned from first concert at new Smokies stadium
The stadium held its first-ever concert earlier this month when Kansas visited town Oct. 8.
The field, which normally converts between a baseball diamond and soccer pitch, transformed into a concert venue for the evening. The stadium’s seating capacity is 6,355, but the total capacity can be expanded with the addition of floor seats on the field.
During the Smokies season, the field had to be converted between a baseball diamond and soccer pitch nine times. While a rainy summer complicated the process, landscaping company Earthadelic, One Knoxville SC, the Smokies and Visit Knoxville banded together to adapt and improve the conversion. Now that baseball is over, the sod is able to settle into the clay and grow deeper roots, Visit Knoxville president Kim Bumpas told Knox News.
Converting the stadium into a concert venue is its own unique process, and the field will have to be returned to a soccer field in time for the Oct. 19 One Knox game.
One Knox played a home match Oct. 1, a week before Kansas came to town. Two days after the concert, the stadium’s field was back to a soccer pitch for the club’s match against Portland. There will be a shorter window this time, but “there’s been no problem,” team owner Drew McKenna told Knox News.
“We had a successful transition this week,” McKenna said, and he expects the same for this weekend.
Xul Beer Company’s nationally recognized Kill the Lights beer festival will be at the stadium during the day Oct. 25, and One Knox will play its last regular season game immediately after at 7 p.m.
One Knox secured home field advantage for the first round of the USL League One playoffs, meaning soccer at the stadium will continue into November.
Knox News reporter Joanna Hayes is a part of the business growth and development team. Email: joanna.hayes@knoxnews.com; Instagram: @knoxeat65.
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