The band played for about an hour and some people never made it to the show.

Prior to the gates opening, traffic was reportedly backed up from Harlan and Hazel Rogers Sports Complex all the way down to the corner of North 15th Street and 10th Avenue North, which is almost three miles from where the concert was held.

The gates were originally intended to open at 5:30 p.m., but instead opened at 7 p.m.,

The threat of storms caused Shellabration to cancel their opening acts in favor of getting ZZ TOP on the stage for as long as possible.

According to Reed, everyone involved put their best foot forward to combat the weather and traffic.

At about 7:30 p.m., ZZ TOP took the stage.

“We were able to get them on for just under an hour,” Reed said on Tuesday. “At the time, the decision to call it was a mutual decision between Shellabration, ZZ TOP’s tour manager and production manager and was made with the information we were provided through the National Weather Service.”

He added, “In looking back, as difficult as those decisions are, no one wanted to deliver a show more than Shellabration, but we made the right call.”

ZZ TOP was off the stage by 8:30 p.m.

Some were still caught in the bumper-to-bumper traffic.

“There are many no doubt disappointed and upset,” Reed said. “We are incredibly disappointed for them.”

Reed admitted he would have preferred if the gates opened at an earlier time.

“In retrospect, the one thing I would likely do different if in a similar circumstance, is delay opening the doors in shorter intervals,” he said. “What I mean by that is we communicated to the public that we were going to delay opening the doors from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. We probably gave the public a false read that they could get into the concert immediately. In retrospect, I would have delayed the gates opening in half hour increments.”

The impending rain led to multiple people converging on the park within about an hour time frame.

“Normally for a nonweather impacted event, people would come across a four hour time frame,” Reed said. “Usually the typical model is people would show between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.”

“Because of impending weather, coupled with our announcement that we were going to open doors later, people chose to come later and condensed the influx into a much smaller window,” he added. “And then the third factor was the anticipated potential record crowd.”

All 8,000 general admission tickets had sold out. About 9,000 people were expected on the grounds of the sports complex, including kids,vendors, and volunteers.

Reed said he believes the Rogers complex can handle that number of people.

“Keep in mind, we had crowds of 8,100 for Boston in 2015,” he said.

About 600 fewer parking spots were available as construction at the Fort Dodge Regional Airport is ongoing.

When asked if ZZ TOP could have performed earlier in the day, Reed said that was not a possibility.

“With regard to canceling and rescheduling, this leg of the tour had them coming from Red Wing, Minnesota,” he said. “We weren’t loading in their equipment until noon. The crew was traveled through the night, and they were scheduled to load in their instruments and amplifiers at noon. That process took three hours. We went earlier than planned, adjusting towards the weather.”

Having the concert the following day was not a possibility either as the band needed to be in Oklahoma for another concert.

“As far as just canceling the event and trying to schedule a future date, contractually they get paid regardless of circumstance,” Reed said. “It took four years to get a contract with ZZ TOP on that day. It sounds like it would be reasonable, but the only time tours cancel and reschedule are factors at the artists’ end. The buyers and promoters are subject to making payment regardless.”

Reed said Shellabration had an estimated $340,000 in costs to produce the show, whether ZZ TOP took the stage or not.

“First and foremost we were concerned about public safety,” Reed said. “But when the weather allowed us to do so, we looked for that window of opportunity to deliver a show.”

He added, “It’s a double-edged sword you find yourself in at that point, because if you fail to deliver a show, and you cancel, all bills are subject to payment. You have to pay the bills and the show doesn’t happen or you work as hard as you can to deliver best show possible under those circumstances and attempt to give people a show for their money.”

Reed said the Shellabration board will learn from the experience.

“The message I want to convey on behalf of Shellabration — we are a group of volunteers working incredibly hard to serve the greater good,” he said. “I want anyone to know who feels we failed them, no one is more disappointed than us. Our promise is to continue to learn from experiences we gained to try and do better in the future. We are also aware that there will be those who don’t think we can do better, and although disappointing it comes with the territory. We will keep operating in good faith.”