The George Strait [ tickets ] Country Music Festival drew $32 million in ticket sales in its second outing, according to numbers released Wednesday (6/30) by festival organizers, Pace Music Group / SFX. Tour officials said that the festival would have surpassed last year's numbers, but a wind storm in El Paso, Texas forced a show cancellation before Strait or featured performer Tim McGraw could take the stage. Rather than replay the date, the festival offered full refunds to the crowd.

The festival featured a set lineup of featured acts, which this year included McGraw, the Dixie Chicks, Jo Dee Messina, Mark Wills, Kenny Chesney and Asleep at the Wheel. McGraw and the Dixie Chicks have begun their own co-headline tour, which moves through Southern California this weekend.

The scheduling of the tour owes a break from tradition to Strait himself, who has arranged the tour to play only on weekends -- a scenario that works well with the tour's working-class audience, but is actually dicated by Strait, who prefers to spend the week with his family and work weekends.

The spacious gaps between shows allow the other acts on the festival to either book other tour dates around the weekend or head home themselves, as McGraw attempted to do as often as possible to spend time with his wife Faith Hill and their young children.

Plans are reportedly already in place for the tour's 2000 run, and organizers have established a routing plan that they hope will keep the festival from suffering the fate of themed festivals like Lollapalooza and H.O.R.D.E., both of which are on hiatus after playing to dwindling audiences on their last outings.

Strait Festival planners will only play a given market twice before retiring it from their itinerary, meaning that the festival will no longer visit Phoenix, Tampa, Dallas, Detroit, Oakland, Chicago, Kansas City and Houston.