Cody Johnson rolls into Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center on Saturday, August 22, for a show that arrives at the worst possible moment for Knoxville parking. The garage that normally sits closest to the arena is closed, prepaid parking passes for the concert are sold out, and University of Tennessee's campus is packed with more than 30,000 additional residents as fall classes get underway.
The crunch traces back to the partial demolition of the G10 parking garage, which began this summer and wiped out roughly 1,800 spaces that concertgoers and commuters have relied on for years, according to WBIR. The garage historically served as the primary parking facility adjacent to both Neyland Stadium and Thompson-Boling Arena, and its loss lands right as Cody Johnson brings his tour to town, per the Knoxville News Sentinel, which reports that prepaid parking for the show is already sold out.
The demolition is not a short-term repair job. It marks the first phase of the $280 million Neyland Entertainment District, a mixed-use development that will eventually include 110,000 square feet of entertainment space and a 24-story condo-hotel, according to Shopping Center Business. The project is not expected to fully wrap up until early 2028, and it will eventually include a rebuilt garage designed specifically for event traffic, per the same report.
UT Move-In Week Adds to the Squeeze
Timing made things worse. UT Knoxville's Fall 2026 classes began Monday, August 17, following student move-in days that ran from August 9 through 16 — a stretch that prompted administrators to encourage incoming students to leave their cars off campus entirely because of construction-related parking strains, per the same account. That move-in surge means campus traffic and parking are near peak congestion just as Johnson's tour bus rolls in.
According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, the prepaid parking passes that did exist for the concert covered a wide range of campus lots — including Staff Lot 9A, Garage G3, Garage G4, Garage G5, Garage G16, Staff Lot 30A, and the Circle Park Lot — all of which are now sold out. University concert parking lots run $20 when available, and those lots open no more than three hours before showtime, the outlet notes.
Agricultural Campus Lots Remain the Fallback
For fans without a prepaid pass, agricultural campus parking is the main remaining option, per the same account. Lots including Ag 65, Ag 66, CC1, and CC4 charge a flat $10 and open 90 minutes before the concert, with shuttles running fans to the arena. Knoxville Area Transit also runs a Park & Ride shuttle from the Knoxville Civic Auditorium and Coliseum for major campus events, charging a flat $25 per vehicle that covers both parking and round-trip shuttle service, according to Hoodline's earlier coverage of the service for football season, with drop-offs within walking distance of campus venues.
Doors, Bag Policy, and the Lineup
Gates for Saturday's show open at 6:30 p.m., with the concert beginning at 7:30 p.m., per the Knoxville News Sentinel. Thompson-Boling Arena's bag policy allows only clear bags no larger than 12 by 6 by 12 inches, or a small non-clear clutch or wallet no bigger than 4.5 by 6.5 inches — a policy the venue also enforced for other major bookings, including Lil Wayne's Carter Classics tour stop in October.
Chayce Beckham and Clint Black are set to open Johnson's Knoxville show, according to the tour website as cited by the Knoxville News Sentinel. The broader Cody Johnson tour lineup this year has also included Parker McCollum, Emily Ann Roberts, David Lewis, and Terri Clark, while previous stops on the run have featured Kip Moore, Scotty McCreery, and Ian Munsick. Johnson is also set to host a meet and greet in Knoxville, though sign-up requires membership in CoJo Nation, his fan club, which carries a $30 annual fee.
Tickets for the show range from about $90 to about $495 and remain available on both Ticketmaster and StubHub, per the Knoxville News Sentinel's reporting.
A Homegrown Headliner With Rodeo Roots
Johnson's 2026 dates, branded the Live '26 and Leather Deluxe Tour, build on his 2023 album Leather and its 2024 deluxe expansion, following a run of award-winning releases that includes his Grammy-winning single Til You Can't and his ACM Song of the Year winner Dirt Cheap, according to USA Today. Before his mainstream country career took off, Johnson competed as a professional rodeo bull rider and worked as a Texas prison guard, self-releasing early records out of the back of his pickup truck, per LiveOne.
A Venue Built for Big Crowds
Opened in December 1987, Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center seats 21,678, making it the third-largest on-campus college basketball arena in the country, behind only Syracuse's JMA Wireless Dome and UNC's Dean Smith Center, according to UT Athletics. The venue took on its current name in August 2023 after grocery chain Food City committed $20 million over ten years for naming rights, the first major venue naming-rights deal in UT Athletics history.
Ahead of the 2025-26 season, UT Athletics completed a multi-million-dollar upgrade that added a new center-hung LED video board, 360-degree LED ribbon displays, and a 1,500-seat floor-level premium lounge called the Riverside Club, per Rocky Top Insider. The new board replaced one that had been in place since 2008, giving Saturday's crowd a considerably upgraded concert experience inside the arena that has hosted major tours from Luke Combs, Garth Brooks, and Chris Stapleton.
