The busy weekend planned at the Show Me Center -- Thursday's Oak Ridge Boys concert followed by two days of monster trucks and concluding with a Sunday gymnastics meet -- will run smoothly, thanks to a strict itinerary.

But Will Lofdahl, events coordinator, said it's actually a relatively easy weekend.

The activity began Wednesday as Show Me Center and university crews began setting up the stage for the Oak Ridge Boys concert in the midst of basketball practice.

Thursday at 9 a.m. the sound and lighting people with the Oak Ridge Boys arrived and spent the morning and most of the afternoon setting up. The doors opened at 6:30 p.m.

When the concert ended at about 10:45 p.m., and everyone had cleared out, the cleaning crew started working on the arena as the stage crews started taking down the lights and sound equipment. "That takes about three hours," Lofdahl said.

At about 1:45 a.m. the clean-up and set-up crew went to work sweeping all of the seats and aisles, cleaning the restrooms and reconfiguring the arena for the monster truck show.

"We have telescopic risers that allow us a lot of flexibility," Lofdahl said.

Friday at 9 a.m. organizers of the U.S. Hot Rod Thunder Nationals arrived to begin setting up their track. They use the arena floor rather than hauling in dirt. Lofdahl said preparing for February's Longhorn Rodeo, which uses tons of dirt, requires much more planning.

The monster trucks will begin rolling out of the Show Me Center following tonight's performance, which will end about 10 p.m.

"Once again our physical plant crews go to work cleaning and reconfiguring," Lofdahl said.

By 5 a.m. Sunday the arena should be ready for the gymnastics people to start bringing in equipment and setting up mats.

The Show Me Center often has a variety of different events scheduled back-to-back, Lofdahl said.

"Everything is well planned out ahead of time," he said. "A group of everyone from every department involved sits down a week to 10 days ahead of time and we talk about a timeline; what everyone needs to do and when it must be done."