DETROIT — University of Michigan officials wanted two things from their first concert at Michigan Stadium: a sellout and a record.

They'll get both when Zach Bryan, the Oklahoma-bred country powerhouse, performs at the Big House in Ann Arbor on Saturday. With a reported 112,000 tickets sold, the show is set to notch an attendance record for the single largest ticketed concert in U.S. history, surpassing George Strait's 2024 concert at Texas A&M, which packed a reported 110,905 into Kyle Field.

"Michigan Stadium is special, and we knew the first one had to be big," says Rob Rademacher, chief operating officer at Michigan Athletics and UM's executive senior associate athletic director.

He says UM officials have come close to hosting concerts at the nearly 100-year-old stadium in the past, but they hadn't found the right fit until meeting last November with promoters from Los Angeles-based AEG Presents.

"We clearly had an alignment of vision of what we wanted to do here and what they were looking to do," says Rademacher. "By mid-December, we knew it could work, and we knew we all wanted to do it."

But what about the logistics? It has long been said that the Big House is too archaic in its construction to accommodate modern concert production — specifically, its tunnel was said to be too tiny to fit a crane through, which is needed to build out staging.

Not so, says Rademacher.

"I will tell you, it's tight," he says. "Within inches tight of it fitting. We actually tested it out to make sure it could work before we got into this. We've done it three separate times, and every time it worked."

Another motivating factor is NIL, the student-athlete compensation program, which allows collegiate athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness. The rule has led to universities looking toward new revenue streams in recent years, and many colleges are now getting into or getting back into the concert business: University of Wisconsin's Camp Randall hosted concerts this summer by Coldplay and Morgan Wallen, their first concerts since 1997, and Oklahoma State University hosted its first concert at Boone Pickens Stadium earlier this year.

"I think there's more pressure on us now to figure out ways to drive revenue, and the use of our facilities — in this case, Michigan Stadium — is a focus," Rademacher says. "It's something we've been in a lot of talks over the last four or five years to try to do something like this, and we finally brought it across the goal line."

University officials initially wanted to host the concert during the summertime, away from UM football season, but Rademacher says AEG was keen on hosting the show during the school year when students were back on campus.

They, of course, had to work around the Wolverines' schedule, and were handed a gift when the UM football schedule was released and Michigan had a rare three-week gap between home games. (Their last home game was Sept. 13 vs. Central Michigan, and they're back on home turf Oct. 4 vs. Wisconsin.)

The Zach Bryan show was announced in mid-February, with guitar virtuoso and millennial heartthrob John Mayer locked in as an opening act. Tickets went on presale, first to Michigan season ticket holders and members of the university community, and sold 66,000 tickets within a couple of hours. The rest blew out the following day during the public on-sale.

"You guys just sold out the biggest ticketed show in American history," Bryan, 29, wrote on Instagram after the sellout. "I owe you my life, my humility and every ounce of effort I have. I love y’all more than any song."

Similarly, the sellout was music to Rademacher's ears. "It was awesome," he says. "Now we've gotta pull it off, and I know we're going to be up to the task."

Rademacher and a team of officials — four from the athletic staff and one from security — traveled to New Jersey's MetLife Stadium over the summer during Bryan's three-night stand at the venue and were given a behind-the-scenes tour of the venue, and were able to talk to staff about logistics, set up and what to expect. "It was one of the best educational trips, for me at least, and we learned a lot," he says. "It was really, really productive, and I'm glad we did it."

Setup for Saturday's concert started Sunday afternoon and will continue through the week. Protective decking has been placed over the field to shield the grass from wear and tear, and seating for around 6,000 will be set up on the main floor. Bryan's stage will be positioned in the center of the field, in an in-the-round configuration.

The weather looks like it's going to cooperate, with a high of 75 degrees forecast for Saturday and no rain in the picture.

For Bryan, who rocketed to superstardom earlier this decade and jumped up from Fillmore Detroit-size venues in 2022 to stadiums two years later — he played to 46,000 fans at Ford Field in June 2024 — it's another notch in his college stadium belt; he played Ohio State's Horseshoe in 2024, and Notre Dame Stadium earlier this month.

Bryan's self-titled 2023 album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart, his 2024 album "The Great American Bar Scene" arrived at No. 2. He landed a No. 1 single on Billboard's Hot 100 with "I Remember Everything," his 2023 duet with Kacey Musgraves, which is one of two songs he has that has netted more than 1 billion streams on Spotify.

For the Big House, which was built in 1926 and opened in 1927, it's an auspicious start to a new chapter in the storied stadium's life. "We are open for business," Rademacher says, "and we are looking to do more."

Zach Bryan

with John Mayer, Ryan Bingham, the Texas Gentlemen, Joshua Slone

6 p.m. Saturday, doors open at 4 p.m.

Michigan Stadium, 1201 S. Main St., Ann Arbor

Tickets sold out

Axs.com

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