“A Kenny Chesney Meet & Greet”

“Meet & Greet”, So Hard To Get… Let’s find out why & some tips on how to get one!

On May 7th 2016 in Phoenix we were blessed to have that long awaited meet & greet with Kenny Chesney. We had met the man 3 times before but never had the opportunity for a picture with him. For most people those meet and greets are just a dream so we took our time with Kenny and thanked him for everything he does for the No Shoes Nation. He even gave us a couple of hugs and a thank you of our own from him. Laughing along the way and sharing with him our die hard love for his music! It was quick, but so very special.

How did we get that meet & greet? That is a question we get from so many of you. After entering every contest we could find and NEVER winning, we started to do some investigating on how Kenny and his team handle meet & greets for his fans. We were able to uncover that Kenny is actually very choosy on how those few meet & greets get distributed. The #1 way that a meet & greet is given is through the local country radio stations for the venue which Kenny will be playing. But, along with the only 20-25 given to local radio stations some rules are given to them to follow. If they run a contest it must be to promote Kenny’s upcoming tour stop in that city and can only be given to an official winner of that contest. Others are allotted for the benefit of a charity with some type of auction to raise money for a local children’s hospital or a charity organization the radio station supports. This is how we received our meet & greets in Phoenix. Our Sandbar girl Deborah Jane made a sneaky phone call to Connie’s husband to tell him about a phone in auction from a local radio station that included tickets to the show and to meet Kenny, so her hubby called and bid on the charity auction. He won the auction and donated the money to the local Children’s Hospital in Phoenix and surprised Connie and Michelle on Christmas with the package as a gift!

Once in while, but not often, if Kenny has a personal connection with a charity, he will donate meet & greets as well. A great place to see if he has donated to any big charity groups is a website called www.chairtybuzz.com. We see meet & greets on there for Kenny all the time. The bidding does get high but it all goes to many great causes. Kenny or his people generally don’t just hand out meet & greets. It is pretty regulated. We don’t know of anyone that has written him or messaged any of  his people and received any responses. We are assuming that Kenny Camp thinks it may be better to let the radio stations and local venues deal with everything. Can you imagine? Kenny probably gets thousands of requests and to regulate them would be almost impossible. The No Shoes Nation is a huge group of people. We actually get asked all the time if we can help someone get meet and greets.

So, How did we get yet an0ther meet and greet? 

2018 in Tampa… it as our hometown show and the opening date of the Trip Around the Sun Tour! We have a great relationship with both our local country radio stations and they completly get our love of Kenny and his music. Connie even worked with radio and her company to help sponsor adoption fees and rescue over 100 Love For Love City pets from the Virgin Islands, all with the help of our local shelter Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando. We contacted our local country staions to get the word out so the pups could get adopted quicker once they arrived in Orlando. Michelle even made sure the story hit the local news too. Well, word got out to the owner of one of the radio stations and he was touched by the whole story and how we truly always have Kenny’s Foundation and his best intrest at heart. He pulled a few strings and surprised us during our tailgate with meet and greets once again with Kenny. But, this time Kenny knew we were coming. When we got to the meet and greet they put us to the end of the line. The familair faces from Kenny camp were so gracious and made us feel so special. As we came around the corner Kenny’s smile said it all. He is so humble and he just simply wanted to thank us for being good stewards of the No Shoes Nation. Our time with Kenny was amazing! We talked all things Love For Love City and our mutual love for the people of St. John and the islands we all love. We told him how much his music means to us! He even knew about our tailgate and the money everyone had raised. Kenny really spent way more time with us that day then we could have ever imagined! Some special people made our whole expierence the best ever.

Earlier in 2017… Michelle and Connie donate every year to St. Jude, but that year due to the hurricanes, their annual walk in Orlando was rescheduled and we were unable to go and raise money for them. We believe in fate. Our friends at St. Jude know how much we love Kenny. They told us about a Dallas radio station that was going to be doing a 2 hour online auction for sandbar tickets to the 2018 Arlington, TX show and it included 2 meet & greets with Kenny Chesney. The money raised would go to St. Jude!  So, on a crazy work day about 15 minutes before the end of the auction Connie went on the link that they sent just to see what amount it was up to. To her surprise it was at $500. Keep in mind… 2 sandbar tickets cost that amount alone and the surprise Tampa meet and greet had not happened yet. She put in a maximum bid of $850.00, thinking that was about what they would have donated that year to St. Jude anyway. She was at work and employees pulled her in a different direction. She walked away from the bidding thinking if it’s meant to be then it will happen. To her surprise about 20 minutes later her cell phone rang with a Dallas, TX phone #. OMG! She was the highest bidder!  We were so excited! We know we are blessed to be able to give back to the amazing charities, but what a treat for the charities be able to offer such an awesome prize! So on May 19th 2018 we showed up yet once more to say hi to our favorite cowboy. We kept it low key and even made it a point to not take up too much of his time. He was so sweet and gave us some big hugs when he saw us. We even got a few gentle pat’s on the back. Felt like it was his way of saying…”its good to see you two again”. He thanked us once more for everything. Kenny is truly a class act and appreciates his fans. 

So… listen to your local country radio stations, join their apps on your phone and watch their websites. That might be your ticket to meet Kenny one day!

Raising money for Love For Love City Foundation is a lot of work and we couldn’t have done it without the help of so many special people. Always remember… we are blessed to have the voice of our Welcome to The Sandbar followers. Any individual that takes on raising money for the foundation… please keep in mind that it does not give you privilege to meet Kenny. So many others are out there raising money from their heart just like you and that is what it should always be about. We never “asked” to meet Kenny and the people that made it happen did everything with out our knowlege because they believed in us! 

We promise to keep you updated if we hear of any other ways to meet the man! 

Michelle and Connie