Zach Williams returns to Topeka, this time at TPAC

Nearly three years after his last stop at Stormont Vail Event Center, the Christian singer plays Topeka Performing Arts Center on Sat, Mar 13, with Emerson Day opening.

The last time Zach Williams played Topeka, it was in the big, flat-floored space at Stormont Vail Event Center on May 8, 2024. When he comes back next spring, the setting will be very different: the cushioned seats and proscenium stage of the Topeka Performing Arts Center, on Saturday, March 13, 2027. The show was announced October 27.

Here's what to know. The show starts at 7pm, and Emerson Day opens. Tickets are on sale through Ticketmaster. TPAC seats about 2,417, which makes it a big room by downtown standards but still a long way from an arena.

That change of room matters. Williams's music sits at the gritty, Southern-rock end of contemporary Christian music, with lots of gravel in the voice and testimony in the lyrics. Those songs can fill an event center, but they tend to land harder in a theater, where the crowd is close and the quiet moments actually stay quiet. For Topeka fans who stood on the floor in 2024, the 2027 show should feel more like a concert you sit in and lean toward.

It's also a sign of how busy Williams's 2027 is looking. Beyond his own dates, he's lined up as a special guest on Third Day's 30th Anniversary Tour this spring, including an April 22 stop at Baylor University's Foster Pavilion, according to Baylor's concert listings, and an April 16 date in Pittsburgh noted by Visit Pittsburgh. For a lot of fans, opening for one of the bands that defined the genre's earlier era is a kind of passing of the torch, and it suggests Williams is heading into the year with momentum.

Same voice, different room: the theater should suit the hushed moments as much as the big choruses.

The opener is worth showing up early for. Emerson Day is a young singer-songwriter who has been building a following in the Christian market. A Louder Than The Music release on her new music notes that she's coming off a Dove Award-nominated song. She brings a lighter, pop-leaning counterweight to Williams's rasp, and a short opening set is a good chance to catch someone on the way up.

The gap since 2024 also says something about how the Christian touring circuit tends to work in a city this size. Topeka often gets caught between Kansas City and Wichita on routing maps, so when an artist with radio hits picks the capital instead of driving past it, local fans tend to take notice and buy early. Getting your tickets ahead of the winter thaw is a reasonable move.

Make a night of it downtown. Grab dinner on Kansas Avenue, walk over to TPAC, and settle in. The last time around, Topeka filled the event center. Mid-March is a good time to remind him why he came back.

Sources: Third Day in Concert – Baylor University Concerts (concerts.web.baylor.edu); Third Day with Zach Williams and Scout and the Saints – Visit Pittsburgh (visitpittsburgh.com); Emerson Day Set to Release New Music Following her Dove Award Nominated Song – Louder Than The Music (louderthanthemusic.com); Zach Williams at Topeka Performing Arts Center – Ticketmaster (ticketmaster.evyy.net)