Line dancing proved the perfect way to enjoy live country music whilst adhering to social distancing as the first ever Country Music Drive In Show came to town over the weekend.

Hosted by JMG Music Group, hundreds of country music fans parked up their cars in Stuart’s Carpark, Enniskillen to experience live performances from some of country music’s finest singers and musicians.

Saturday night (July 25) saw stellar performances from Robert Mizzell, Declan Nerney, Gary Gamble and Hugo Duncan whilst local band The Tumbling Paddies and Donegal’s Paul Kelly took to the stage on Sunday night (July 26). Due to a family bereavement, Philomena Begley’s show, which was scheduled for Friday, August 24, was cancelled.

Talking to The Impartial Reporter about the success of the drive-in shows, James McGarrity from JMG Music Group said: “It went well, everyone adhered to the social distancing, it was a fantastic backdrop with the lakes and Sunday was a fantastic day, there were no weather concerns or issues. Saturday night there was a small bit of rain but it didn’t dampen the spirits and anyone who was there seemed to enjoy it. The whole weekend feedback has been very positive.”

Explaining that the drive-in shows were a completely new venture for JMG Music Group, James said: “It was totally unknown territory for us, normally we would promote hundreds of concerts indoor here so it was very much trial and error, ‘let’s try and do something’. Since March 15 we’ve went from doing 25 shows a month to nothing and a lot of musicians and singers are on their knees at the moment so we were looking for ways that we could try and get them some work.”

“Enniskillen is a very strong area for live music. The Ardhowen, we do about eight shows a year there and it’s a very popular part of Northern Ireland for music and it connects with so many different counties so we thought, ‘look, there’s one area that we’d like to try with a drive-in’, so last weekend was the first weekend and we have more drive-in shows in August coming up,” added James.

Over the two nights, James noted that there were close to 500 people in attendance: “It sort of averaged at 250 people per event.”

Outlining how the drive-in experience worked, James said: “We had a PA on the stage for the normal atmosphere of a live gig plus we had the FM transmitter so we broadcast it into people’s cars as well.”

“On Sunday it didn’t have to come into play because the weather was good and people were able to sit outside their cars on portable chairs and social distance and it worked absolutely splendidly. On Saturday night there was a bit of rain so what was happening was, when it was raining people were getting into their cars to listen to the music and when it stopped raining they were getting out of their cars again,” laughed James, adding: “What happened on Saturday night was people were line dancing in between cars and it actually looked really good because all the cars were two metres apart. Stuart’s Carpark is a great big space so we were able to accommodate the numbers and keep the cars at a social distance so there was no issue, all the Covid-19 regulations were adhered to,” James told this newspaper.