Dinner Shows and the Name That Changed
Near Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Pigeon Forge may be the dinner show capital of America, and one of its biggest venues carries a lesson about how the South talks about its own past. Dolly Parton's Stampede is a thundering arena show with horses, stunt riders, and a four course meal you eat with your hands, no silverware. It opened in nineteen eighty-eight under a different name, the Dixie Stampede, and its friendly competition between a North side and a South side leaned on Old South imagery.
For years critics argued that the word Dixie, and the show's romanticized Civil War framing, glossed over the reality of slavery and the Confederacy. In two thousand eighteen, amid a national reckoning over Confederate symbols, Dolly Parton dropped the word Dixie and rebranded it simply as her Stampede. She has always tried to keep her appeal broad and her politics gentle, and the quiet name change was very much in that spirit.
The strip offers plenty of other choices. The Hatfield and McCoy Dinner Feud turns a famous mountain family blood feud into slapstick comedy and belly busting food. The Comedy Barn has built a clean, family friendly reputation.
Eat, laugh, and watch a horse, all in one building. That is the Pigeon Forge evening.
