Zac Brown Band is set to play Nationwide Arena on Friday, August 14, bringing its Love & Fear tour to downtown Columbus with Grammy-winning Americana group Old Crow Medicine Show opening the show. Tickets for the Arena District concert range from $56.95 to $156.70, and the stop marks the band's return to the venue for the first time since 2023.
According to The Columbus Dispatch, Zac Brown Band has racked up more than a dozen No. 1 hits over its career, including chart-toppers like “Chicken Fried,” “Toes,” “Knee Deep,” “Colder Weather” and “As She's Walking Away.” The band has topped both the Billboard Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts and has won three Grammy Awards along the way. Live shows have also become known for unexpected covers, with the band folding in songs from Stevie Wonder, the Eagles and even the Beastie Boys into its sets.
The Columbus stop comes on the heels of a milestone night in Boston, where the band played its 15th show at Fenway Park on August 2 and broke its own record for consecutive sold-out shows at the ballpark, per the Dispatch's reporting. That performance also earned Zac Brown Band induction into the Fenway Music Hall of Fame, a distinction the ballpark reserves for artists who hit historic or record-breaking milestones there, joining past inductees Billy Joel, Paul McCartney and Noah Kahan. Fans at the Fenway show reportedly walked away with cruises for two as well.
A Big Year Built Around a New Album
The current run supports Love & Fear, the band's latest studio album, released in 2025. Ahead of the tour, Zac Brown Band also held a limited-run residency at Sphere in Las Vegas, becoming the first country group to headline the futuristic venue, a milestone Iowa Events Center notes sits alongside the band's broader commercial track record of 16 No. 1 radio singles and status as only the second act ever to top both the Country and Active Rock charts.
Opening the Columbus show is Old Crow Medicine Show, described by the Dispatch as a Grammy Award-winning Americana ensemble. The group was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2013 and earned a Double-Platinum RIAA certification for its folk staple “Wagon Wheel,” according to the Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences.
Familiar Ground in the Arena District
Nationwide Arena, which opened in September 2000, seats up to 20,000 guests in full concert configuration and sits at the heart of downtown Columbus's Arena District, according to Nationwide Arena's own venue information. The building was constructed on the former site of the historic Ohio State Penitentiary and hosted its first-ever concert on September 9, 2000, featuring country stars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, per the arena's history. Concerts there are booked through Columbus Arena Sports & Entertainment, a joint operation formed by the Columbus Blue Jackets and Ohio State University's athletics department that also oversees events at the Schottenstein Center.
The venue has hosted a steady run of major tours this year, including Lil Wayne's July stop at the arena. Meanwhile, the building itself remains at the center of an ongoing local funding push: Franklin County officials applied in February for $100 million in state sports grant funding as part of a proposed $400 million overhaul of Nationwide Arena and the surrounding convention district, a plan Hoodline has been tracking as it works through public funding hurdles.
Tour Stretches Into November
The Love & Fear tour, presented by Margaritaville at Sea, spans 27 shows nationwide from July 17 through November 21, opening in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and wrapping in Rosemont, Illinois, according to Business Insider. Columbus falls in the middle of that run, sandwiched between other stops the band has played this year, including an upcoming Knoxville arena date later in the tour calendar.
Off the road, frontman Zac Brown has continued his philanthropic work through Camp Southern Ground, the 400-acre Fayetteville, Georgia facility he founded to support youth and military veterans dealing with PTSD. The camp's annual benefit concert raised a record $3.4 million in March, according to Camp Southern Ground, and Brown was previously honored with The Warrior Alliance Lifetime Impact Award. For Columbus fans, though, Friday's focus will be on Nationwide Arena, where the band last performed in 2023 and now returns riding the momentum of its Fenway Park record and a fresh album full of collaborators pulled from across the musical map.
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