Behind the Briefcase: How We Helped Luke Combs Reveal His 2027 Tour

Eric Wagenmaker
Aug 13
6 min read

There are projects that come through the door that you know are special.

Then there are projects that make you stop for a second and think, How in the world did we get here?

THIS was one of those projects.

Luke Combs recently revealed the cities for his 2027 tour in a way that felt very familiar to anyone who loves the trading card hobby. Sitting in front of a custom briefcase, Luke opened it up and began revealing one card at a time, almost like a collector ripping into a case break. Each card represented one of the cities he would be visiting on tour.

Those cards, and the briefcase they came in, were made right here at Reclaim Customs.

And the story of how they came together is one I don't think I'll ever forget.

THE CALL BEFORE THE NATIONAL

Luke's creative team reached out to me the day before we were leaving for the National Sports Collectors Convention.

The ask was exciting.

The timeline was slightly terrifying.

We had two weeks to make it happen.

In reality, though, we didn't really have two weeks. We already had one foot out the door for the National, which meant that first week was essentially gone before the clock even started.

So we went to the National knowing that as soon as we got home, we were going to have to hit the ground running.

And that's exactly what we did.

12 CITIES. 12 CASE HITS. ONE BRIEFCASE.

The Monday after the National, our team got together and went through the vision for the project.

Luke would be announcing 12 cities for his 2027 tour, and his creative team wanted a custom card representing each stop.

But these couldn't just look like 12 ordinary trading cards.

The idea was for every single card to feel like a "case hit."

If you're familiar with the hobby, you know exactly what that means. A case hit is the card you're chasing. It's supposed to feel rare, special and different the moment you see it.

Now imagine creating 12 of them at once.

Each card needed its own identity while still feeling like it belonged to the same collection. They had to represent the individual cities while maintaining Luke's branding and the overall aesthetic of the campaign.

And then came my favorite part of the concept.

Luke wasn't simply going to show the cards to the camera.

He was going to reveal them like a card break.

The cards would be presented inside a repurposed Flawless briefcase that we customized with Luke's branding. Luke would open the case and reveal the cards one by one, turning a traditional tour announcement into something that felt like it came straight out of the trading card hobby.

It was such a cool marriage between two worlds.

And we had about five days to pull it off.

FIVE DAYS OF CONTROLLED CHAOS

What followed was a whirlwind.

We designed. We revised. We sent concepts for approval. We made changes. We produced the cards. We worked on the briefcase.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, Luke's creative team came back with another request.

They wanted us to create a cryptic teaser video to help build anticipation for the announcement.

At the time, Luke already had a countdown running on his website pointing fans toward a "big secret announcement." Nobody knew exactly what was coming, and speculation was starting to build.

So we leaned into the mystery.

We created a teaser that gave people just enough to start asking questions without giving away what was actually inside that briefcase.

Then Luke posted it.

And people went crazy.

The comments started pouring in. Fans were guessing. People throughout the country music world were trying to figure out what Luke had planned.

Meanwhile, our team knew exactly what was coming.

And we still had to finish making it.

THE FRIDAY FINISH LINE

By Friday, we were down to the wire.

The cards had to be finished. The briefcase had to be finished. Everything had to be assembled, checked, packed and ready to go.

There wasn't any room for "we'll finish it Monday."

Luke had a filming session coming up, and our work needed to be there.

We finished the project Friday, got everything packaged and made it to UPS just in time to have the briefcase overnighted for the filming session.

After the pace of that week, handing that package over was a pretty surreal feeling.

At that point, there was nothing left for us to do.

Except wait.

THEN LUKE OPENED THE CASE

When the reveal finally went live, I watched with a level of anticipation that's hard to describe.

We had spent the previous week staring at those cards on computer screens, holding them in our hands, making adjustments, assembling everything and obsessing over details.

Now Luke Combs was sitting there opening our briefcase.

And pulling out our cards.

One by one, the cities were revealed.

It was the exact moment we had spent that crazy week working toward.

But there was one part I wasn't expecting.

As Luke went through the case break, he mentioned several times how awesome he thought the cards were.

That meant so much to me.

There's something different about hearing the person you created something for genuinely react to it. Luke didn't have to stop and compliment the cards. Hearing that reaction while watching him use something our team had poured so much into was incredibly rewarding.

For a company built around the belief that collectibles can tell stories and create moments, it was hard to imagine a better example of what we've always believed Reclaim Customs could be.

MORE THAN A TRADING CARD PROJECT

I keep coming back to what this project actually was.

Yes, we made 12 custom cards.

Yes, we customized a briefcase.

But those things became part of something much bigger.

They became the vehicle for the announcement itself.

Luke Combs could have announced these cities with a graphic. He could have posted a list. He could have released a traditional tour video.

Instead, his team chose to turn the announcement into an experience.

A collectible experience.

For a few minutes, one of the biggest artists in country music became a card breaker, revealing his own tour one hit at a time.

And Reclaim Customs got to help make that happen.

That's something I'll carry with me for a long time.

A CAREER MOMENT I'LL NEVER FORGET

I've had the opportunity to work on a lot of projects I'm proud of over the years, but this one is different.

For Reclaim Customs, this was a huge moment.

For me personally, it was probably the highlight of my professional career.

Not simply because Luke Combs is one of the biggest names in music, although that's certainly not lost on me.

It's because of what this project represented.

A creative team had an ambitious idea with an incredibly tight deadline, and they trusted us to figure out how to make it real.

Our team responded.

In five days, we took an idea from a Monday morning meeting to a finished briefcase headed out the door Friday night. We designed 12 unique case-hit-style cards, created the physical presentation, worked through approvals, produced a teaser campaign and delivered everything in time for Luke to film the reveal.

Then we got to sit back and watch the world see it.

That's pretty special.

WATCH THE ENTIRE PROJECT COME TO LIFE

The finished cards tell part of the story.

Luke's reveal tells another part.

But neither really captures what that week was like inside Reclaim Customs.

Fortunately, we had the cameras rolling.

We documented the entire project from beginning to end and put together a 17-minute behind-the-scenes video chronicling the journey.

You'll see the initial concept, the designs taking shape, the cards being made, the briefcase coming together, the teaser video, the pressure of the deadline, the final push to get everything out the door and, ultimately, our reaction to seeing the project in Luke's hands.

If you've ever wondered what goes into a project like this behind the scenes, this is your chance to come along for the ride.