For the first time in more than three decades, Country Jam Colorado —the Centennial State’s largest country music festival, previously headlined by Jelly Roll and Cody Johnson—will not take place next year.
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In a statement posted to social media Friday (Sept. 26), festival organizers said the event will pause in 2026, allowing time to “re-evaluate and plan for the future.”
“We’re grateful to all the fans, artists, partners, and the entire Colorado community and beyond who have supported the festival and make it such a special event year after year,” the statement concluded.
Every year since 1992, country music fans have flocked to Jam Ranch in Mack, Colorado, for the three-day festival. This year’s event, held in June, featured headlining performances from Eric Church, Cody Johnson, and Bailey Zimmerman.
[RELATED: Eric Church Delivers Memorable Set After Taking Over for Luke Bryan at Country Stampede]
This Country Star Supposedly Proposed to His Wife at Country Jam Colorado
Per the Denver Post, Country Jam Colorado is a spinoff from the Shake, Rattle and Roll Festival, an oldies celebration founded in 1989 at Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
The festival changed course when the ’90s ushered in a new level of popularity for country music, Melissa Jefferson, the event’s sponsorship manager at the time, told the Post in 1996.
“It was getting harder to find the old rock ‘n’ rollers – the ’50s-type rockers – who were still alive,” Jefferson said.
A man named Tom Sheldon attended the first Country Jam Colorado festival with his wife. Thirty years later, he remained an annual regular.
“We’ve had a lot of great adventures at Country Jam, great stories at Country Jam,” Sheldon told KJCT News. “It’s been a pretty integral part of western Colorado.”
A crucial part of the festival’s lore happened in June 1996, when country superstar Tim McGraw popped the question to his now-wife, 15-time ACM Award winner Faith Hill.
“I looked at her and grabbed her by the hands right before I went on stage… And I said ‘I’m really serious, I want you to marry me,’” McGraw said.
Laughing, the “This Kiss” star replied, “We’re at a country music festival in a trailer house and you’re asking me to marry you?”
Realizing he needed to step up his game, McGraw scrawled the question with a marker on an armoire mirror he brought to each show.
“When I came back off stage, in sharpie, with a lipstick at the end of it,” he recalled. “A lipstick kiss, it said, ‘Yes! I’m gonna be your wife.’”
The couple now have three daughters—and that mirror, still.
Featured image by Jason Kempin/Getty Images
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