Jason Sudeikis is back in Kansas City this weekend, bringing Weird Al Yankovic, Will Forte, Brendan Hunt and a crowd of friends with him for the 10th annual Thundergong! benefit. The show lands Saturday, Nov. 14, at the Uptown Theater, and tickets are already gone.
According to KCTV5, the event will feature music and comedy to help uninsured and underinsured amputees obtain prosthetic limbs. This year's lineup includes appearances and performances by Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, Weird Al Yankovic, Will Forte and Sam Richardson, among others, the station reports. Hunt, a Ted Lasso co-star, joins the bill alongside the rest of the group for what has become an annual tradition in midtown Kansas City.
As KMBC reports, the musical variety show draws a large crowd every year, combining comedy, live music and storytelling to raise money for people who need prosthetic limbs but cannot afford them. The benefit funnels proceeds through the Steps of Faith Foundation, which provides prosthetics for people in Kansas City and across the country, per the same outlet.
A Sold-Out Night for a Decade-Old Cause
The event's own website, thundergong.org, confirms that TG!26 is officially sold out, continuing a streak that includes last year's show. Steps of Faith Foundation describes its mission on the site as reconnecting amputees to their communities, families and workforces by relieving the financial burden of prosthetic care.
Last year's ninth Thundergong! packed a sold-out Uptown Theater on Nov. 8, 2025, with more than 1,000 people in attendance, according to the Kansas City Star. People from 43 states and eight countries flocked to midtown Kansas City for that show, the paper reported, with Will Forte, Brendan Hunt, Cristo Fernandez and Sam Richardson joined by musicians Weird Al Yankovic, Kevin Morby and Waxahatchee. At that same event, two pairs of limited-edition Nike Air Max 90s sold for $15,000 each, raising $30,000 toward the cause, per the Star's reporting.
Fundraising Totals Diverge on Nine Years of Giving
KMBC reports that last year's concert raised a record-breaking $1.13 million, while the Star's account put the number at $1.1 million raised on Nov. 8, 2025, setting a record for the event. The two outlets also diverge on the event's cumulative haul: Thundergong!'s own website says the effort has raised more than $5 million over nine years, while the Star reported the total stood at just shy of $4 million after nine years of fundraising as of last November. Hoodline could not reconcile the discrepancy between the figures.
KMBC also reports that Will Gregory said 500 people every day in the United States lose a limb, and that insurance generally does not cover limb loss — a claim attributed to Gregory in that outlet's coverage. Broader reporting on the issue adds context: an Avalere analysis estimated that 2.3 million people are living with limb loss in the U.S., according to KFF Health News. An AHRQ report cited by that outlet found that fewer than half of people with limb loss have been prescribed a prosthesis.
Why Coverage Gaps Persist for Amputees
The Amputee Coalition's Ashlie White told KFF Health News that while coverage for basic prostheses may be included in a plan, insurance companies often put caps on the devices and restrictions on the types of devices approved. That variability helps explain why events like Thundergong! have become a fixture for families navigating the cost of prosthetic limbs rather than a one-time fundraising push.
A Government Accountability Office report separately examined traditional Medicare beneficiaries who lost a limb in 2016, looking at how many received rehabilitative services or prosthetic limbs and the challenges they faced obtaining them, according to the GAO. For now, the sold-out crowd filing into the Uptown Theater Saturday will be doing their part the way Kansas City has for nine years running: with comedy, music and a night built around Steps of Faith's mission.
