The Prairie Grove Police Department has five officers for the town of 2,000 residents.
On Friday, Sept. 19, Chief of Police Michael Goins said he’ll have up to 50 police officers working to direct and protect the 20,000 people expected to flock to the mostly rural McHenry County community as the Luke Bryan Farm Tour rolls into town.
Because both he and Village Administrator Michael Freese have extensive experience in public safety, “we were optimistic we could handle it,” Goins said.
As of last week, the field on Barreville Road where the country music star is set to perform consisted of soybeans and a wooded section holding some farm machinery.
By the time Bryan’s tour and its semis roll in to begin setup, the village will be ready, Goins said.
Local officials heard some rumblings in January that the country music star was looking at adding Prairie Grove to his tour of concerts set up on farmland. Once the call came from the Berning Family Farm that the show was on, preparations started.
“The first thing I did was reach out to Brooklyn, Wisconsin,” Goins said.
That town, near Madison, has hosted the tour before and will again on Sept. 18, the night before Prairie Grove.
“They gave me copies of their operations plan and answered questions,” providing a baseline to start from, Goins said. Then, he started reaching out to the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office and Crystal Lake and McHenry police for help.
Those departments are sending help for the concert, all paid for by the Farm Tour promoters, who also have offered their expertise, Goins said.
Along with 20,000 people, 7,000 cars that need to get into the site and parked are expected.
“They will be coming from all directions, but from the data I have seen, mostly from the north and south – with a little more coming from the south,” Goins said.
Traffic coming from the north will be sent up Barreville Road to the north parking lot, and vehicles from the south are expected to come off Route 31 and go to the south lot. Electronic messaging boards on Route 176 and Route 31 will direct traffic.
All other traffic in Prairie Grove will be restricted to local residents only.
“We will keep most of the traffic out of the central part of town,” Goins said.
Preparation wasn’t only about traffic and parking. The village also is going to have 30 private paramedics and ambulances and a field hospital with two doctors and two nurses, Goins said.
“And, we are coordinating with [the] Nunda [Rural] Fire [Protection District] for anything beyond that, or any critical event,” Goins said.
The McHenry Police Department – which planned for its own McHenry Music Festival held last weekend – also is helping with a command center and an officer to run it, Chief of Police John Birk said. He plans to put electronic signs on Route 31 and other roads the day before, warning drivers that they may want to find an alternative route Friday.
McHenry also is blocking some neighborhood streets and limiting entry to local residential traffic only, Birk said. The Farm Tour field abuts the Oaks of Irish Prairie subdivision and Veterans Parkway, both of which will be closed to anything but residents, Birk said.
After the show, traffic coming out of the north parking lot will be sent north on Barreville Road to Charles J. Miller Road, and from there, east toward River Road.
“We don’t want to impede traffic on [Route] 31,” Birk said.
Goins said he’s relying on technology – cellphones and mapping apps – to get drivers into and out of the venue.
“We have coordinated with Verizon and AT&T [for] additional cell tower resources,” including redirecting some signals to ensure concert attendees have cell coverage, Goins said.
To ensure residents and visitors are in the know, the village of Prairie Grove also posted the traffic and safety plan to its Facebook page.
“We plan not just for when it goes smooth, but for when things go bad, and I think we have a good plan,” Goins said.
Around the village, there is excitement building “that this superstar is coming to Prairie Grove,” Goins said.
“But behind the scenes, we have put a lot of work into it,” he said. “The cooperation with the other law enforcement partners, the government partners … their aid has been great.”