Families sat in lawn chairs while children played with glow sticks and dads threw footballs with their kids during Pop's Events' concert in Corning, Arkansas this summer. Donald Black and Rickie Maples were working when they stopped to watch the crowd.
"This is what we've been trying to do from the beginning," Maples said.
The scene in Corning reminded Black and Maples why Black's father, known as Pop, started the first festival in 2018. "Donald's dad wanted fellowship. That was his goal," Maples said. "He wanted people to appreciate each other and laugh together."
A Reason to Come to Town
Pop's Events began in 2018, when Black's father was operating a flea market behind McDonald's in Van Buren called Pop’s Tiques & Fleas. Tourism was beginning to return after a historic flood in 2017, and Black's father believed the town needed to host an event to get Van Buren busy again.
"He was like, 'I need people coming into town,'" Maples said. Black's father had also been a pastor and enjoyed having people come talk to him.
He suggested an arts and crafts fair, and Black and Maples agreed. The first festival, hosted in fall of 2018, had about 20 vendors and roughly 700 people. Attendance doubled the following year and continued growing.
The event continued to grow, reaching about 120 vendors and an estimated 8,200 people in 2021. Black's father died that September and did not get to see the event reach that milestone.
The following year, Black and Maples continued hosting events and added a concert. Tyler Farr performed at the first concert, which brought about 10,000 people into Van Buren, according to cellphone data obtained through the Poplar Bluff Chamber. The event stretched from the east side of towns at Pop’s to the west side at Riverfront Park, creating sales opportunities for local businesses while also creating new challenges for the organizers.
"We couldn't handle the whole thing from one end of town to the other," Maples said.
Pop's Events attempted different options for the concert and festivals, including separating the weekends, but they ended up keeping them together all at the Riverfront Park.
In addition to the festival with vendors of all kinds and the concert, Pop’s Events also hosted a car show each year. The car show that began with about five cars and has since grown to 180 vehicles in 2025.
Because these events are hosted in the fall, people come to Van Buren after the normal tourism season. "Once Labor Day's over, tourism dies off," Maples said. "So the whole point of what we were doing was to do it outside of that tourist season. So we bring another push of people to town."
Black agreed. "If you come here the weekend before or the weekend after, you won't see cars in town," he said.
A Different Kind of Concert
As Pop's Events grew, Black and Maples had to figure out how to keep bringing people into town while creating the kind of atmosphere Pop had wanted from the beginning. They tried different ways to make the larger events work financially and attract the crowds they wanted. Alcohol became part of some of the concerts after they were told it would be difficult to draw large crowds without it.
"We didn't think to sell any alcohol, we just wanted a concert," Black said. "[People] said, 'Well, if you're going to have that kind of event, you have got to sell beer.' So, I guess we got to sell beer."
The decision gave the events another source of revenue, but Black said it never sat comfortably with him. "My dad wouldn't appreciate it very much, and it didn't feel good," he said.
That feeling became clearer during the concert in Corning, Arkansas with “American Idol” winner Hannah Harper and runner-up Jordan McCullough.
Pop's Events had booked Harper before her audition for "American Idol" aired with hopes to host her near Van Buren. After her audition went viral and she later won the show, the concert became more difficult to arrange in Missouri. Pop's Events eventually connected with Corning, where city officials agreed to host the event.
Maples said the concert came together quickly. Harper's contract was signed on a Monday morning, and she won "American Idol" that night. Shortly after, McCullough, who had been playing with Harper at the Grand Ole Opry a few nights before, found out about the event and wanted to be involved in support of Harper. “He got a hold of us on Thursday, and said, ‘I'd like to come be part of that. Could I come be part of that?’” Maples said. After some negotiation on pricing, they all made their way to Corning to prepare for the night.
"We had a lot of help from Corning," Maples said. "The people in Corning knew what it meant to bring something to the town and they rallied and they come to the table and they're like, 'What do you need?'"
While Black and Maples were working the event that night, they began noticing something different about the crowd.
"There were dads throwing footballs with kids, families sitting in lawn chairs, hee haw laughing, kids on blankets, little packs of kids running around with glow sticks," Maples said. "There was this atmosphere that was incredible.”
Black noticed it, too. "There wasn't a hassle. We didn't have people with frowns on their faces," he said. "There was never anything to worry about. It was a different setting."
After the concert, Black and Maples returned to Corning to thank city officials and ask what they could improve. An alderman told them he had talked to people in town and searched Facebook for complaints about the event.
"I'm going to be honest with you. I've talked to everybody, and I've looked at every bit of Facebook, and I have not found one negative comment anywhere," Black recalled the alderman saying. "We've never had an event in Corning, Arkansas, that somebody in town wasn't griping about something, and I never heard a word."
The response gave Black and Maples a picture of what they had been trying to create since the first festival. "It was exactly what we wanted it to be," Black said. "We just didn't know how to make it happen."
Bringing Back Revival on the Current
For Black, the Corning concert and what followed became a pivot point in the way he and Maples viewed Pop's Events. They had spent years trying to bring people into town. Now they believed they had seen the kind of fellowship Pop had wanted them to create.
A few years ago, Black had connected with a local pastor, Dave Truncone, who had been involved with Pop's Cafe, about creating a worship concert featuring Christian artists. The event was planned, but the timing and cost of using areas in Van Buren did not work out, so Revival on the Current was put on hold.
"After Hannah, we're like, it's time to bring [Revival on the Current] off the shelf," Maples said.
Black and Maples reached out to McCullough with their idea and he offered to come perform. “We just said, ‘Hey, would you consider?’ And he's like, ‘absolutely, I'm all in.’” Maples said. Shortly after, McCullough connected Maples with a few other artists and now, Pop’s Events has a lineup of several artists for Revival on the Current, set for Oct. 3 in Van Buren.
The event will include Christian artists and speakers, along with the typical festival, beauty pageant, and car show from Pop’s Events.
According to Black and Maples, the goal of Revival on the Current is still fellowship. "We hope everybody comes to enjoy themselves, to experience the family atmosphere, to do all of those things, and maybe take away just a little bit more," Maples said. "Maybe have an experience that sets them on another path, kind of like Hannah did for us."
Carrying Pop's Vision Forward
Black's father died before he could see how far Pop's Events would grow, but Maples said the reason he started the first flea market is still present in the work and the way the organization is moving forward.
"[Pop’s Events] is absolutely everything and more that he had hoped for," she said.
Maples remembers sitting with Pop at the flea market when there were few customers. She would sweep the floors while he shared his peanut butter crackers and found a Scripture to share.
"He was always about that," Maples said. "It didn't matter who it was. Nothing mattered to him except the person and how he could help the person."
That part of Pop's legacy has become more important to Black and Maples as they consider what Pop's Events could become.
Black still wants to bring major events and artists to rural communities and not all events will be faith centered. “We'll put on a wild concert and let everybody get crazy. I don't care. That's what we'll do, but they will see something different.” he said. “You can have a beer, that’ll be fine. But Budweiser’s going to sell it to you. We aren’t.”
For Black, the success of Pop's Events has never been measured only by ticket sales or the number of people who come through town. He said he wants the events to create a reason for people to spend time together and for the community to recognize what can happen when everyone benefits from the same effort.
"If you win, I'll win, she'll win, and we can get that attitude changed here,” Black said. Looking back at the events surrounding the Hannah Harper concert, Black said he began to see the way people and circumstances had come together as more than coincidence.
“Jordan was put there for us for whatever reason. The stars lined up. I really think we just need to get out of the way," Black said. "We need to work really, really hard and let it do itself. It won't fail."
