August 28 is circled in permanent marker on our calendar here at Sunset Country Fest, and we think it should be on yours too. Carly Pearce just announced her fifth studio album, Honest Woman, dropping that day via BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville, and the lead single "She Don't" is already telling us everything we need…
259. That is the number of days that separate us, right now on August 1, 2026, from the moment Sunset Country Fest 2027 opens its gates in Apopka, Florida. We ran the calculation this morning, and something about hitting the first day of a new month made it feel more real than usual. Summer is…
August 1 felt like the right morning to open the calendar and confirm it: the Kacey Musgraves Middle of Nowhere Tour launches in exactly 20 days. Starting August 20, 2026, Musgraves takes her seventh studio album, Middle of Nowhere, on the road for a sweeping North American arena run that stretches all the way through…
There is a moment that happens at every country music festival, usually sometime around dusk, with the stage lights cutting through golden hour and thousands of voices singing back every word, when you realize this is unlike anything else live music has to offer. We have talked to enough country fans in Central Florida to…
225,000 tickets. Three nights. One stadium. We have been watching Luke Combs' career trajectory since the days he was playing college bars, and nothing in his journey has felt as seismic as what is happening this week at Wembley Stadium in London. Starting tonight, July 31, 2026, Luke Combs wraps up his My Kinda Saturday…
Fall 2026 is shaping up to be one of the strongest seasons for country music in Central Florida history, and we have been building this guide all summer to make sure our readers do not miss a single date worth knowing about. Whether you are based in Orlando, Apopka, Kissimmee, Sanford, or anywhere else in…
Nine. That is how many times Lainey Wilson has climbed to the top of the country charts, and we were tracking this summer’s chart movements when the milestone stopped us cold: she’s already deep in the creative process for her next record, and she described the experience as being “more creative than ever.” We have…
Ask any country music fan in the Orlando area where they go for a real outdoor festival experience, and the honest answer has always been: somewhere else. Central Florida has the fans, it has the culture, and it has a country music community that runs deeper than the tourist economy gets credit for. What it…
Twenty-four cities. A summer run that stretches from Nashville to the California coast. Thomas Rhett's Soundtrack to Life Tour launched July 9 and runs through October 24, 2026, and when we mapped out the full schedule this week the ambition of the thing hit us immediately. From back-to-back stadium appearances with Niall Horan to a…
It is the end of July 2026, and we have finally made peace with the fact that we cannot stop adding to this list. Every week this summer, a new song has come through our rotation that earned its place here, whether it landed at No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, went viral on…
One hundred and sixty-three radio stations put their hands up for Jelly Roll in the first week of “Hands Up” at country radio. We have been tracking country radio chart moves here at Sunset Country Fest for a while now, and that number stopped us in our tracks. Released June 27, 2026, “Hands Up” became…
Halfway through summer 2026, we sat down as a team and tried to count every major country music story we had tracked since Memorial Day. The list was longer than any of us expected. This has been one of the most packed, most surprising, most genuinely exciting stretches of country music news we can remember…