KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — The renowned night club and line dance destination Cotton Eyed Joe is giving customers a chance to design a new sign for their 30th anniversary.

September 1 marks 30 years that Cotton Eyed Joe has been in business, and while the club has changed hands, it still maintains quite a bit of its original charm, namely the woodwork. Cotton Eyed Joe owner Chuck Ward purchased the club in November 2017 from Gingy Backley, who started the club in 1993.

“He started the club in ’93 and basically took the whole inside of the building where it is now and designed it the way that he, you know, knew how he did all the woodwork. He built the dance floor, put the semi-truck in,” Ward said. “I was talking to a guy about this the other day. I said if we had to have somebody come in and design this bar inside and then hire a construction company to do it it would be thousands of dollars, but he did all that by hand.”

Ward says they’ve only received a few designs so far, but they’d love to have around 15-20 really good designs around the original Cotton Eyed Joe logo. Farragut is allowing Cotton Eyed Joe to put a new face on the sign, Ward explained, and they wanted to give customers the chance to do something.

“That’s a pretty big platform up there that they’re designing around, that’s a big sign, the CJ. The logo that’s on it now, basically the Cotton Eyed Joe name that’s on it now doesn’t take up the whole space. So we’ll probably use all of that platform,” Ward said.

Designs can be submitted at www.cottoneyedjoe.com through the contest entry submission tab.

Ward also shared that plans are already in the works for the 30th-year celebration on Friday, September 1, including giveaways and a concert by Sammy Kershaw. Ward said they’re excited to have the 65-year-old country music artist back. Tickets to the concert are anticipated to be on sale in the next week.

Cotton Eyed Joe is a dance and night club which has a 25,000 square-foot dance floor. The night crowd at Cotton Eyed Joe can enjoy line dancing, concerts mechanical bull riding, darts, pool tables, and four bars.