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Tampa Bay’s Hometown Morning Krewe

Tampa Bay’s Hometown Morning Krewe

Tampa Bay’s Hometown Morning Krewe

Tampa Pig Jig 2024 Headliner

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Author Tampa Bay's Morning Krewe

The Tampa Pig Jig 2024 headliner has been announced.  It’s back again for another year and we can’t wait.  If you love music by the waterfront, great food, cold drinks and a ton of fun, you will definitely want to be at this years Pig Jig.   Named, the Best Charity Event by Tampa Magazine, will be another huge event you do not want to miss. 

This years event will be held once again at Julian B. Lane in downtown Tampa right along the Riverwalk on Saturday October 19th.  Who will be on stage this year?  None other then our friend Dierks Bentley!

I think this is the first year Dierks has ever played Pig Jig.  I’ve been going to Pig Jig for a long time.  There have been so many great artists on stage including Sam Hunt, Kip Moore, Brad Paisley, Riley Green, Brett Young, Jake Owen, Darius Rucker, Justin Moore and more.

Tampa Pig Jig 2024 Headliner

This years  full lineup includes: Dierks Bentley.  American rock band The Revivalists, southern country duo Muscadine Bloodline,  The Cadillac Three, and young breakout Country star Greylan James.  

The event, presented by RIPA, Valley Bank, and Baldwin Risk Partners, donates proceeds to NephCure, supporting its mission to find treatment and a cure for Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) and Nephrotic Syndrome. 

Tampa Pig Jig 2024 Ticket Information

This event will sell out.  It does every year, so get your tickets early.  With Dierks Bentley headlining the event this year, there will be lots of people in attendance

Tickets will go on sale Friday April 26th at 10am.  However if you are signed up for our Club QYK – you can purchase your tickets on Tuesday with the event presale code.  It takes 2 minutes to sign up for Club QYK.  The presale code is:  WQYK.  You can enter that HERE to get your tickets.

Of course keep listening all week to win your tickets at 8:20am and 4:20pm.

For the first time in event history, tickets to the Whitney Logistics Premium Lounge are being made available for public sale. This exclusive area includes access to the Whitney Logistics Premium Lounge with all-you-can-eat and drink all day long, a full-service bar, private bathrooms, and exclusive sponsor experiences. Plus, you’ll have access to a reserved viewing area directly in front of the Pig Jig stage!   For more information or to purchase tickets, head to TampaPigJig.com.

How Tampa Pig Jig Started

It all started with a group of friends who threw a BBQ in their backyard to help out their buddy Will.   Will Wellman was faced with medical expenses associated with his FSGS diagnosis and his friends wanted to help.  So, what began as a backyard competition among friends gained steam and grew into the Tampa Pig Jig.  Now it’s an annual waterfront fundraiser featuring nationally recognized country and rock music artists, delicious food, ice-cold beer, a corporate BBQ competition, and more!

 

 

Five Country Stars That Are Licensed Pilots

Country stars travel all over the country throughout the year to play shows for fans, and many of them fly in their own private lets.

Chris Young, Jason Aldean, Brad Paisley, Reba McEntire, and many more have purchased their own planes to make the touring life easier for them and their families so they don’t have to stay away for so long. Reba has been flying private since the early 1990s and even got some flak from her Music Row neighbors when she wanted to put a helipad on her office roof near downtown Nashville. Music Row tenants were concerned that the helicopter noise would disrupt recording studios.

Many country superstars are taking their love of private flying one step further, getting their pilot’s licenses and flying themselves to and from shows.

Thomas Rhett has been thinking he would like to pilot his own plane for years but admits he has reservations. Rhett told us, “I could definitely see me still wantin’ to do that. I have so many pilots in my family. My brother-in-law, Grayson, is a pilot, my father-in-law is a pilot, and a lot of my close friends are pilots. I think it would take a little more trust on my own end to trust that I could do it right. I’m not the most attention-to-detail person, and I feel like you really need to be detailed to be a pilot.”

He added, “So, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll become a very detail-oriented person over the next five years and decide that getting my pilot’s license is something I’d wanna do. If Dierks [Bentley] can do it, I can do it.”

The FAA requirement to become a private plane pilot requires 40 hours of flight training time for the private pilot certificate. Many new pilots have 60-70 hours.  But many country stars have done it and now are able to fly their own airplanes.

RELATED: Luke Bryan’s “Most Powerful Moment” During Las Vegas Residency

  • Alan Jackson

    Country Music Hall of Fame member Jackson was flying to and from gigs early in his career and learned how to fly by watching and learning from the pilot. He told us, “When I started flying to work, I got interested in watching the pilot who flew me, and he taught me. At that time, we had a farm with a pretty big grass strip, and I had a plane with amphibious gear so I could land on water, the lake. I just kind of flew around Nashville. I still have my license; I just don’t fly. Denise (his wife) got tired of my flying and worrying about me.”

    Alan Jackson wearing a plaid shirt and cowboy hat on stage playing the guitar
    Rick Diamond/Getty Images

  • Dustin Lynch

    In August of 2022, Dustin revealed on Twitter that he got his pilot’s license. He wrote in a post, “Set a goal, and when you get there…man, it always feels good! First solo flight today.”

    Dustin Lynch on Twitter: "Set a goal, and when you get there...man it always feels good! First solo flight today 👨🏽‍✈️🛫 / Twitter"

    Set a goal, and when you get there...man it always feels good! First solo flight today 👨🏽‍✈️🛫

    Lynch told us it was a new hobby. He said, “What really pushed me was we weren’t touring. So, it was like, ‘Let’s pick up a new hobby.’ I have some farms that are hard to get to – driving or flying commercially.”

    He posted a video of attending an air show with his friend Swiss to Instagram at the time.

  • Luke Bryan

    Luke told us in 2021 that his new passion is something he started to learn during the pandemic when he purchased a helicopter. And he is a licensed helicopter pilot. He said, “I think that was a big reason why I wanted to learn, and if I’m looking at all these gauges and I know everything is going smoothly, you know it’s just something fun.” Luke also can now compare flight logs with his buddy Dierks Bentley. He offered, “I’ve always had a little envy of Dierks Bentley. Dierks and I have this intellectual competition going on where he can’t out-intellect me. Dierks is like savant smart, so I like to try and challenge my goofy savant smartness against his. So we’re both aviators now, and he can’t one-up me in the aviator game.”

  • Tim McGraw

    Tim is a trained pilot and flies to and from concert dates. His wife Faith Hill and he have a deal never to fly together privately in case something happens so their girls will not lose both parents. He’s been flying for years. In a recent promo for Cirrus airplanes, McGraw says the thing he loves most about flying his own plane is the “relaxation of it.” He added that he loves being up in the air, not having to think about work or “any of that stuff.”

  • Dierks Bentley

    Dierks is one of country music’s most well-known pilots. He flies his own Cessna plane to shows nationwide. His tourmate Jordan Davis recently told us that Dierks saved him recently and helped him make a show.

    Davis told us, “First show of the tour, I’m sitting on an Air Canada flight plane in Toronto. It’s an hour delayed. So I was like, ‘This flight is gonna get canceled; I’m gonna miss the first day of the Dierks tour.’ Then I get a message from my manager that says, ‘Hey, get off the plane; Dierks is gonna re-route and pick us up.” Jordan continues, “True story. He swoops in and picks us up with caked-on sunscreen in his Dierks gear: flip-flops and shorts. I was like, ‘Thanks, dude, for picking me up,’ he says, ‘Yeah man, hop in, we’ll take off.’ We fly to Canada going down to land; something’s on the runway, and we have to pull back up. Dierks is flying the airplane, not like co-piloting; he’s flying the airplane, goes down, pulls back up, circles back around, comes in, and in one of the smoothest landings I’ve ever had in a PJ (personal jet).”

    A couple of years ago, Bentley did a flight safety video.

Launa is part of Tampa Bay's Hometown Morning Krewe on 99.5 WQYK. She has been with the station for 7 years and joined J.R. and Kevin on the morning show 4 years ago. Since then, they have been nominated for not only a CMA but also an ACM. Launa has been in radio for the past 28 years and in the Tampa Bay market for 22 of those years. While working in radio, Launa has also served as an entertainment reporter on a local TV show and has hosted many charity events in the community. Using her popularity from QYK, Launa loves to help raise money for shelter animals and has been a volunteer at local shelters for years. Launa loves the community and writes articles on local news, entertainment, and events and highlights people who are shining in Tampa Bay that she knows others like her would also be interested in reading.

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