‘It wasn’t as trashy as I’ve seen it’: Luke Bryan clean-up crews leave little sign Sunday of Farm Tour stop in South Huntingdon

Passersby Sunday morning would have no idea the Cunningham family farm in South Huntingdon swelled to crowds of 18,000 people to see country music artist Luke Bryan the night before.

Luke Bryan's annual Farm Tour turned the once quiet 90-acre farm into a sea of RVs, school buses, cornhole boards and tailgaters singing along to the country star's hits Saturday night.

Josh Cunningham, a son of the farm owners, thanked state police, the security guards and concert staff who enabled a smooth event and clean-up.

"By morning, the fields were pretty clean. I got over here around 11 a.m., and they were just finishing up," he said. "It is spotless. There is not a thing to be seen."

The family and cleaning crews uncovered three sets of keys, three cellphones, about 10 debit cards and a purse amid the few tents, portable toilets, stray beer cans and tractor trailers carrying stage and sound equipment that remained Sunday morning, Cunningham said.

"That's been the weirdest part of it," he said. "Some of them were in the (portable toilets)."

Photos were posted on the family's Instagram page, To retrieve a lost item, message the family on Instagram.

Bryan's staff left a half a pallet of water for the family, which Cunningham said will be used by the Turkeytown Bible Alliance Ministries' trunk or treat event in October.

"We couldn't be happier with Luke Bryan," he said. "There were very few incidents last night."

State police Trooper Kalee Barnhart told TribLive an official report of incidents from the event will be available Monday.

Russell Johnson, owner of The Steel Plate restaurant in Monessen, saw the open field turn into a concert venue and back into farmland. As a food vendor for the event, Johnson arrived at the Cunningham farm at 10 a.m. Saturday and did not leave until 2 a.m. Sunday.

"It was fun to watch a whole field turn into a concert venue, to where the whole sky was lit," said Johnson, of Monessen. "You could hear it all the way out here, and we're a couple hundred yards away."

Johnson — who worked with another local restaurant to donate 50 pizzas and 200 burgers to concert crews — returned to the grounds Sunday morning to pack up his vendor equipment. The farm had been mostly cleared by 8 a.m., he said.

"It is a giant production, and it's pretty cool to see that people can put something so big together," he said.

Gerard Hadley has cleared Farm Tour concert venues for about 9 years. The job typically takes about 12 hours, he said.

Hadley, 30, of Pleasant View, Tenn., estimated the Cunningham farm would be cleared by noon Sunday.

"For a sold out crowd," he said, "It wasn't as trashy as I've seen it."

Beer cans and food waste created the majority of the mess that greeted crews at the end of the concert.

"It wasn't really raining or muddy, so they didn't tear anything up too badly," Hadley said of the grounds.

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It took about three hours for concert-goers to funnel out of the venue on the surrounding rural roads after Bryan stepped off the stage Saturday night, Johnson said. Having grown up just five miles from the farm, he could not believe the traffic drawn to his hometown.

"I don't think anybody would drive by this field in six months and be like 'Yeah, we'll put a concert there for a megastar,' but that's what (Bryan) did," Johnson said. "It just shows the local love of small communities, which we all come from."

After coordinating the Farm Tour stop since March, Cunningham said he and his family are in need of a break.

Nonetheless, the family would be open to doing it all over again next year.

"If he gives us a call, we'll consider hosting the event again," he said. "(Bryan) likes coming back to the same farms, it was a great show and he loves Pennsylvania."