Country star to headline 2026 GJCF Saturday night concert

A country artist nominated for multiple Country Music Association awards will play the 2026 Great Jones County Fair. 

Fair officials announced this week that Riley Green will headline the grandstand entertainment on Saturday, July 25, with an opening act yet to be announced. Tickets cost $100 and go on sale on eTix at 10 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 3. 

It’s the first of the 2026 acts to be announced, and Fair Manager Lucas Gobeli said the fair’s entertainment committee had its eye on Green for a while. 

“We reached out through our agency and they said it might work (to have Green play in Jones County),” Gobeli said. “The agency that he is with now is the same one for (2025 act) Hardy.”

The announcement of Green’s upcoming concert was made official on Monday morning. 

Green has three albums to his name -- “Different ‘Round Here,” “Ain’t My Last Rodeo,” and Don’t Mind if I Do.” He boasts four to-20 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs list, and three of his singles spend at least one week on Billbord’s country airplay chart -- “Worst Way,” “You Look Like You Love Me,” and “Half of Me.”

His first number-one single, “There Was This Girl,” was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. 

Green has toured with country artists Luke Combs and Morgan Wellan and recently wrapped up his own headlining tour across the U.S. 

Getting Green

Like many of the fair’s concerts, planning for this announcement was months in the making. Gobeli said the process of booking Green to come to Monticello started at least six months ago, well before even the 2025 fair and Green’s July schedule fit nicely into the available dates for the GJCF. But that’s only part of the story. 

When booking high-profile acts, organizers look at “routing” to determine if it’s a fit. GJCF uses an agency to navigate this. An act needs to be close enough for a reasonable drive to Monticello but not too close to where they may have already sold tickets from the market. 

“We want them, on the day before (they appear in Jones County) to be at leat 175 miles away but no more than 400 miles away,” Gobeli said. “Once they get over that distance they need to have more drivers, and … when some of them have multiple buses and semis, that adds up.” 

Gobeli said GJCF was among the first in the area to reach out. Then from there they played the waiting game to see if Green and his agency would ultimately accept the gig. 

“It was waiting to see if things came in around us that they could work in,” Gobeli said. “That’s why it takes time. I may want to make an offer, but no one else that works for the routing is making offers yet … There’s a lot more to it than saying, ‘Hey, I want this person to come to the fair.’”

Tickets now combined

A change for 2026 Great Jones County Fair concert-goers will be the elimination of multiple tickets. 

In the past, those going to concerts in the grandstands were required to purchase their concert ticket and then supply a separate admission ticket. This, Gobeli said, created a choke point at time at the entrance gates when confused concert-goers were unware they needed an admission ticket to get into the fairgrounds. 

“We pull from a much larger area than Jones County for our concerts,” Gobeli said. “If someone is thinking of going just to a concert, they aren’t thinking ‘oh, the concert is at a fair, so I’m going to need to pay for admission when I get there.’”

Going forward, a single ticket purchased when buying a concert ticket will get the holder through the front gates as well as into the concert venue. 

Gobeli said this new system will also offer more transparency for the buyer. 

“When someone logs in to buy a ticket on eTix with us, they see the price they will pay right away,” he said. “We show all our pricing up front and it is all bundled into one upfront price.”

The $100 price for a Riley Green ticket includes fair admission as well as fees for processing.

Gobeli said that cost is a bit higher than previous years, adding that “the acts aren’t getting any cheaper. There’s inflationary pressure there, too.”

Work on new entrance continues

Amid planning for the 2026 and 2027 GJCF, fair officials are also at work to advance a project that will bring new restrooms and a new gate to the fair’s entrance at the intersection of East Seventh Street and Maple Street. 

Gobeli said the fair board is seeking cost estimated for this project, which would bring a new, modern facility to the southern side of the fairgrounds. In addition to a new accessible restroom facility, the project -- which was estimated to cost around $2 million when first presented last year -- would include six ticket windows with bolstered security. 

“We’ll see where the pricing comes in to see if we need to do it all at once or as a multi-phase project,” Gobeli said. “With how fast the ticketing environment is changing right now, it may work best to do it as a two-phase project. Do the bathrooms first, because they are badly needed, and then the rest of if would come 3-5 years from now when the ticketing environment will be totally different. 

Gobeli said virtually all sporting events now use digital tickets stores on smartphones. Adopting this technology at the Jones County Fairgrounds requires strong cell signal on site, something Gobeli said is still being worked on. 

“We are starting to transition to electronic tickets,” Gobeli said. “A lot of people thought it would be a problem to have them, but after we had them for a year, they thought it was much easier.” 

Gobeli said electronic tickets simplifies things for both attendees as well as fair administrators, especially when budgeting and analyzing ticket sales. 

The new gate and restrooms will be paid for using funds saved by the fair board as well as grants. Gobeli said a fundraising campaign will begin this winter once updated cost estimates are finalized, with the goal of starting construction on the project after the 2026 fair.