Paisley tickets on sale from The Meadville Tribune on Vimeo.

By Keith Gushard

Meadville Tribune

Her 90 minutes at the Crawford County Courthouse on Tuesday morning were well spent, according to Susan Geer.

She was one of several hundred people in line in the courthouse’s assembly room for the first day of ticket sales for the Aug. 27 Brad Paisley county music concert at the Crawford County Fair. In addition to Paisley, Dierks Bentley and Jimmy Wayne are the opening acts.

“This was my first time buying tickets,” said Geer of Meadville. “It was worth it.”

However, she’s not even benefiting from the wait. “The tickets are for my son and his friends — they had to work,” said Geer who had volunteered to wait in line.

First-day sales were expected to top 3,000, according to Fred Wagner, Crawford County Fair Board treasurer. That’s 30 percent of capacity — the grandstand holds 5,000 for concerts, plus another 5,000 for racetrack seating near the stage.

There were 2,978 tickets sold by late Tuesday afternoon, Wagner said. But the figure was expected go higher as tickets are available 24 hours a day via the Internet. Tickets also are sold in person at the courthouse during normal business hours and via phone.

“It was a nice day for us,” Wagner said. “He’s one of the top acts in country music, plus we have Dierks Bentley and Jimmy Wayne, too.”

Tickets went on sale at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday with telephone and Internet sales starting later, at 10 a.m., to be fair to those waiting in line, Wagner said.

Bridgette Davis drove up from Parker in Armstrong County to wait in line for an hour rather than ordering by phone or Internet for one simple reason.

“Better seats,” she said with a smile as she held the four racetrack area tickets she had just purchased.

“It’s my birthday present to myself,” Davis said of her reason for going to the concert.