Johnson County city plans to woo World Cup tourists with live music, craft beer
As governments and organizations across the metro consider how to best handle – and also attract – potentially hundreds of thousands of visitors during the 45 days the FIFA World Cup will be in Kansas City next summer, at least one Johnson County city is hoping that beer and live music could help draw people into its downtown.
Shawnee officials are discussing plans for Americana and Ales — a free one-day, family-friendly bluegrass festival and a conjoining, ticketed beer festival spearheaded by Shawnee-based Friction Brewing.
“With an anticipated influx of international visitors and soccer fans flooding the Kansas City metro, the festival aims to elevate the visibility of downtown Shawnee as a cultural destination and community hub,” according to the presentation given to the City Council during Monday’s meeting.
Kansas City will host six soccer matches for FIFA’s 2026 men’s tournament across several weeks during the summer of 2026. Shawnee city staff estimated roughly 600,000 visitors will come through the metro over the course of the month, with crowds fluctuating depending on the match.
With the World Cup a little less than a year out, it’s important that the city takes fast action to book stages and musical acts and purchase necessary equipment, said Eddie Crane, the owner of Complete Construction Services, who is coordinating the fest.
Crane, who also has a background in the hospitality and music industries, teamed up with the Shawnee Chamber of Commerce and several other local partners to brainstorm the event and brought it to the City Council for discussion.
The team is looking at Saturday June 20 from 3 to 10 p.m. with a similar footprint to Downtown Shawnee’s Moonlight Market, which runs on the block of Johnson Drive and Nieman Road.
Two stages, the mainstage sitting in the City Hall parking lot and a more intimate setting across the street inside the historic Aztec Theater, will hold several live bands throughout the day. Nieman and Johnson will accommodate vendor booths, food trucks and the adjoining beer festival.
Future budget asks, parking and security
While the council didn’t make any decisions financially, City Manager Paul Kramer said that the total event budget is $110,000 and believes the event could achieve $30,000 in sponsorships and grants.
Organizers would come back in July to ask for $80,000 from the city — with an initial $50,000 to make deposits, secure the date with bands and secure a headliner within the Americana genre; $25,000 to secure deposits for staging, lighting, tables and tents; and an additional $5,000 to administer and market the event.
While security wasn’t discussed in the presentation, Kramer said that Shawnee anticipates that vacation during June next year “will be off limits” for police because “we don’t know what’s coming.”
“We’ll be fully prepared, we are going to make sure we maintain all of our force within Shawnee and not help out other areas and make sure we have the protection we need,” Kramer said.
Parking is still in the works because the team doesn’t know the event’s full scope. Once it’s narrowed down, the city will look at parking options or remote parking with a shuttle service if needed.
City Council members seemed to like the idea, but several wanted to see a return on investment to understand the benefit to local businesses.
“I guess my commentary for this point is (that) it looks like a fun event and I’m not opposed to the event itself happening. I think I’m a little leary of spending city dollars on this, but we’ll ponder and get back to it,” council member Mike Kemling said.
The City Council anticipates discussing the project again for budget approvals during its meeting the first week of July.