Zach Bryan concert brings major impacts to St Joseph County
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- More than 80,000 people descended on Notre Dame Stadium for the Zach Bryan concert this past Saturday, making surrounding bars and restaurants extra busy.
Shri Thakur, a senior at Notre dame, attended the concert.
"I didn't really try to take an Uber anywhere, really leave this area, because I knew it would have been impossible," said Thakur.
Thakur said the area was very busy.
"[It] rivaled almost like a football weekend, in terms of how much foot traffic there was, both on Eddy Street and on campus. I mean, I went to Chipotle for lunch, I believe, on the day of the concert, and I had to wait like 30 minutes in line. That almost never happens," said Thakur.
Amber Goddard, the General Manager at O'Rourke's Public House, says they have a lot of newly trained staff that got a taste of what football season is going to be like.
"I would say this challenge was, you know, just getting the staff in the flow of what it's like on a crazy, crazy day," said Goddard.
She says it was busy on Friday as people were getting into town, and on Saturday from the moment they opened their doors.
"Had a nice, full restaurant for most of the day. Cleared out a little bit during the concert, which gave us a nice minute to regroup and get our stuff back together. And then we got really busy after the concert, and stayed busy until the minute we closed," said Goddard.
Goddard says a concert is a little bit of a different flow than a Notre Dame football game. She says they didn't know exactly what to expect, because it’s been a little while since the last concert at the stadium.
"Last year, this weekend was the first home game, and we beat those sales with the Zach Bryan concert," said Goddard.
Goddard says they do things a little differently during football season as they welcome an influx of people.
"We always prepare by having on extra staff, getting extra food and beer and wine and liquor. We keep a truck out back with cooler and freezer in it with extra stock, just because we don't have enough room to keep everything we go through in the restaurant," said Goddard.
Jeff Jarnecke, the Executive Director of Visit South Bend Mishawaka, says special events like this, especially of this magnitude, add a lot to the community.
Jarnecke says each and every home football weekend brings 36 million dollars of economic impact. He projects the past weekend had good economic impacts on St. Joseph County, thanks to the concert.
"So on any given weekend throughout the rest of the year, we're somewhere around 55 to 57% in terms of occupancy and being full on those weekends with an average daily rate of around $118. What we can expect to see on this was probably something closer to 90% over the weekend, and something with probably a couple $100 more on the average daily rate side. And that's just the hotel side of it, so that by the time you factor in restaurants that wouldn't have been as busy and bars that wouldn't have seen the same number of people to the shops where somebody just happens to pop in, there was nothing else that we would have had on that weekend other than a football game that would have had the same impact that the Zach Bryan concert did," said Jarnecke.
He says this particular event drew a different audience than a Notre Dame football weekend, with more people between the ages of 18 into their thirties.
"What we found in our research and as we prepared our first-ever Tourism Master Plan that we launched this past January,is that residents, tourists, stakeholders, business owners alike, thought there wasn't enough to do in St. Joseph County. That was the number one, not only suggestion for the future, but criticism of where we are today. And so we then created, through the hotel, motel tax board of St. Joseph county, a dedicated fund that is specifically there to grow events, to buy events, to bring events, to enhance events within St. Joseph county. And so, you saw the makings of that with the Zach Bryan concert, but you'll also see a lot more of that with some impending announcements that we'll make here in the coming months for 2026.”
As far as future concerts go, Jarnecke says while nothing is finalized quite yet, they do anticipate some concert announcements for the region later this fall for next year.
"When you talk about a concert, not everybody wants to tailgate. Some people, especially coming from out of town, don't want to bring the pop-up tent and pack a cooler. And so they're going to go to a bar, they're going to go to the hotel bar or restaurant. They're going to go explore. And so we saw people just enjoying the beautiful weather that we were fortunate to have, but also took in the rest of what we had to offer in the county, and so that's why those sorts of events are so important to our community going forward," said Jarnecke.
ABC57 reached out to Notre Dame for comment on the event and received this statement from Lee Sicinski, Executive Director of University Events:
"On Saturday night, Notre Dame stadium proved to be more than a venue for winning football, it was the setting for a great night of music, with more than 80,000 people enjoying beautiful weather and great music in a historic setting. From our law enforcement partners who managed traffic, to our vendors who served through the evening and events personnel who attended to every logistical detail, it was an enjoyable evening for all and the perfect tune-up for our season opener with Texas A&M."