Nashville’s two premier summertime music events – Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th and CMA Fest – both experienced record-breaking numbers, according to the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. Stadium concerts also continue to drive leisure visitation.
“Nashville’s tourism economy, built on our vibrant live music scene, is truly a driving force of our city’s success,” said Deana Ivey, President and CEO of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. “It creates jobs, generates tax revenue, boosts our local businesses, and supports our musicians and creative culture. We’re thrilled to see our major-event strategy leading to record-breaking visitor spending and hotel room nights sold.”
Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th
The free Independence Day concert and fireworks show, which included drone lights for the first time, resulted in the most hotel room nights ever sold on July 4th in Davidson County with 27,136 hotel rooms filled, higher than the previous peak in 2019. Visitor spending generated by the event was a record-breaking $17.5 million. As previously announced, the record-breaking crowd of approximately 355,000 was a 42% increase compared to last year’s event.
About half of visitors surveyed at July 4th this year said the primary reason for their visit to Nashville was the downtown event. About 80% said they were first-time attendees. Over the same July 4th period, Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center hosted Delta Sigma Theta Southern Regional Conference with 4,500 attendees, which also helped fill hotel rooms.
CMA Fest
Country music’s signature festival generated a record-breaking $77.3 million in estimated direct visitor spending, which was a 3.5% increase over last year’s celebration of the event’s 50th anniversary. As previously announced, about 90,000 fans attended daily (June 6-9). They came from all 50 states and 46 countries, according to the Country Music Association.
The average travel party size was 3.4 people spending $3,608 and staying five nights. About half of visitors indicated they traveled by air to the event, and 11.4% of visitors surveyed were international. The number of downtown rooms sold over the four-day event was up nearly 5% over last year, and the occupancy rate downtown peaked at 93.5% on Friday night. The top five feeder states outside of Tennessee were Florida, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, and California.
Concerts and More
In addition to downtown music events, the weekend of June 28-29 was the second-best weekend on record in terms of hotel room demand with a total of 74,983 rooms sold, a 13% increase over the same weekend last year. Driving visitation was the Zach Bryan concert at Nissan Stadium on June 29, resulting in downtown hotel occupancy on that day of 97.4%. The ALLY 400 NASCAR CUP SERIES at Nashville Superspeedway also took place that weekend.
Nashville set an all-time record for hotel room sales during the first weekend in May this year driven by the Morgan Wallen concerts at Nissan Stadium, a Predators home playoff game and numerous college and university graduations with more than 75,500 hotel rooms sold- the most ever in the city’s history for a Friday and Saturday.
Upcoming concerts and sporting events that are expected to continue to drive leisure visitation through early fall include the following:
August 9-10: Chris Stapleton at Bridgestone Arena
September 7: Dierks Bentley at Bridgestone Arena
September 15: New York Jets at Tennessee Titans
September 22: Green Bay Packers at Tennessee Titans
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