T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK Jackee Pugh, left, executive director of Belmont County Tourism, congratulates Chris Dutton, co-founder and co-operator of the Blame My Roots country music festival. They hope for another successful concert series next year. The lineup, including Dierks Bently, poster, has been announced.

ST CLAIRSVILLE — The third annual Blame My Roots Fest, held at the site of the Valley View Campgrounds in Belmont County, kicked off ticket sales at 10 a.m. Tuesday morning and officials, along with the local tourism office, expect an even bigger year in 2022.

Co-founder of BMR Chris Dutton expects ticket sales to rise compared to this past summer when people were still apprehensive over the COVID-19 situation, which covered an array of logistics.

Dutton also talked of the improvements that are coming, some the public may not see but deal with “features and experiences” that took place during the 2021 festival. He said the VIP cabana area will be expanded, as well.

“We’ve got a couple surprises in store that we’re not really announcing yet,” Dutton said, adding that Thursday night will be a different opening than they’ve shown in the past with Nikko Moon returning.

“That kickoff night will be much bigger than what we’ve done in the past,” Dutton explained, but the surprises he declined to detail are still being worked out.

The COVID crisis obviously hurt, as most other businesses suffered, too, with the cancellation of the 2020 festival and ticket sales so far down this year compared to their first festival held in 2019.

“We know that people just weren’t willing to risk it,” Dutton said. “We know that people just weren’t comfortable, still aren’t comfortable even through this fall.”

Dutton felt it was an accomplishment just to get the 2021 concert off the ground considering all the unknowns. What he felt hurt even more was the fact there weren’t many concerts leading up to this year’s BMR .

“We couldn’t really draw off of too many other shows to see how they handled from a production standpoint right? How they handled this, how they handled that … we didn’t know how a lot of these artists were going to act once they got on the ground,” Dutton said. “I’m proud of the team we had that was actually able to pull that off.”

He expects ticket sales to rise well over 2021’s weekend numbers, which were over 12,000, and is confident that will be eclipsed in 2022. One promising sign is what he called their presale loyalty sales from November – where people who previously bought tickets to past festivals bought tickets without knowing the lineup – sold out. General admission and VIP tickets also sold out and cabana sales doubled from this past summer from that same presale group.

He called BMR a small but growing festival where they have to work at gaining the artists’ trust, where he described it as they’re pushing the shopping cart, “not us.”

“We’re new and we’re competing with Live Nation so you really have to make a case for yourself,” Dutton said. “It’s really important to get the backstage stuff right, to get the production stuff right, to treat the managers really well, to make sure these folks feel good about coming to your festival … ”

Dutton praised the help and support they’ve received from the local authorities as well as first responder teams such as the Lafferty Fire Department.

“I can’t say enough about them,” he said, naming Assistant Chief Dustin Hudak and his efforts in working through the summer of COVID this year. “Those guys at Lafferty are awesome.”

And feedback he’s received on the impact to Belmont County and the surrounding area were that restaurants, hotels and other businesses were busier during the time of the festival.

“We know that ticket sales came from 15 states, which is really cool to see,” Dutton said. And some of those states were as far away as Texas. “So there’s people that are coming back into the area, we’re back here before and we’re able to have that reach. So we’re doing something that is big enough to bring a lot of those folks back to the area, and new folks.”

Executive Director for the Belmont County Tourism office Jackee Pugh agreed with Dutton’s claims of increased business in hotel rooms, restaurants and the shopping areas. And the lineup announced doesn’t hurt either.

“We know that that is going to bring a lot of visitors to our area,” she said of the lineup announced for next year, which includes Dierks Bentley and Ashley McBryde among the group.

“Those visitors aren’t going to just be coming to the Blame My Roots Fest, they’re going to be visiting our malls, they’re going to be at our grocery stores, our restaurants and checking out the area,” Pugh explained. “So, we know that’s definitely going to bring a big economic impact to Belmont County.”