Jul 16, 2013 2 min read

Luke Bryan. Trace Adkins. Miranda Lambert.

The country stars are coming out in full force this weekend for “A Jamboree in the Hills,” a country concert and festival in Belmont County, Ohio, just west of Wheeling, W.Va., that draws hundreds of thousands of people each year.

This is the 37th anniversary of the four-day outdoor festival, which begins Thursday and continues through Sunday.

The festival’s 25 hours of live music features everyone from country music legends to current chart-toppers and rising stars.

This year, the festival boasts music from Toby Keith, Dwight Yoakam, Neal McCoy, the Oak Ridge Boys and Chris Young – just to name a few.

“Everyone out here is just a big family and having a great time,” Jamboree media coordinator Casey Tucker said. “So many people come every year. (We) even have people coming from Australia.”

Tucker said the festival also hosts a “cooler contest.” After Jamboree officials noticed the “crazy coolers” people brought to the festival, organizers decided to host a contest.

The person with the craziest cooler wins free tickets for the festival the following year.

Jamboree also holds a “redneck run,” where everyone lines up at the gates and sprints to get to their spots. “It gets absolutely crazy,” Tucker said. “People are literally jumping over one another.”

J.R. Shaw, executive director of the Washington County Tourism Promotion Agency, noted Washington and Pittsburgh are the biggest destinations on the way to the concert for people traveling from the east. “Hopefully they stop and drop some of their hard-earned cash here,” he said. “In the summertime, (there’s) something to do almost every weekend.”

The event starts 4 p.m. Thursday and there will be fireworks Friday evening. “(We’re) expecting to be very busy,” Tucker said.