Nashville’s CMA Fest brings fans from all over the world to celebrate Country music. This festival has it all: free concerts, surprise performances, intimate shows, stadium shows, meet-and-greets — and, of course, the CMT awards that Wednesday to kick it all off!
The Country Music Association hosts CMA Fest every June for 4 days. They offer free concerts all day as well as events that allow artists to meet their biggest fans. When the sun goes down, Nissan Stadium is in full swing with performances from the biggest artists in country music.
With over 25 performances from The Orchard’s roster, the week was full of great music and extraordinary company. We were able to divide and conquer to experience what our clients had in store for the week. First up was the CMT awards where we were able to get all dressed up (before the sweat and rain of the following festival days!) and host many attending clients in The Orchard suite at Bridgestone Arena.
Trisha Yearwood gave intimate performances with fans when she was the CMA Artist of the Day and performed at the Spotify house. The line was out the door and around the corner to get in for her performance in such a unique atmosphere! Nashville native Levi Hummon who just finished his tour with Hunter Hayes performed his new single “Night Lights” and his Patient EP at various stages during the week. The powerhouse that is Kelsea Ballerini headlined CMA fest and co-hosted the show CMA Fest: The Music Event of Summer, for a third consecutive year!
Some of The Orchard’s CMA Fest attendees took a moment to remember their highlights of the festival. Here are their answers:
Jessica Phelps-Colvin; General Manager, Nashville
While it’s hard to select just one, I’d have to highlight Sunday’s presentation of the upcoming Ken Burns documentary on Country Music. Our city and musical history is rich, and can sometimes be overshadowed by contemporary Country music. I have hope that the doc will bring a lot of new and curious fans to the genre.
Alan Becker; SVP, Product Development:
This year The Orchard brought together several generations of stars — from newcomers Cody Webb and Jaclyn Kenyon to a superstar Kelsea Ballerini along with legends Trisha Yearwood and Clint Black — all made me really happy to be at CMA Fest. It was inspiring to join the Nashville team while keeping the heat on all our amazing Nashville based labels and artists and made 2019 the best CMA Fest yet!
Lauren Kasper; Director Label Management Nashville:
Watching Kelsea rule Nissan Stadium with The Chainsmokers in the rain!
Dewayne Brown; Director of Nashville Artist & Label Development
As The Orchard shines ever so brightly, so did CMA week here in Nashville. Along with the visiting Alan Becker, The Orchard Sales Team and The Orchard Nashville staff we proved that “divide and conquer” was the successful theme of the week. We all got to experience our labels and artists performing at their highest level. But wait, it wasn’t all “country” music as we had our amazing artist Keb Mo sell out three consecutive nights at the Franklin Theatre.
My favorite shows would be the brief performance by Trisha Yearwood for the Spotify House at Ole Red, Kelsea Ballerini at the Nissan Field, Hayley Orrantia at Maui Jim’s and Adelaides.
Zack Marney; Senior Manager, Account Management
This year’s CMA Fest was the perfect opportunity to hang with our labels and partners in a fun and musical environment. It was particularly special to see artists that The Orchard has worked with since the beginning now headline the main stage at Nissan Stadium.
Another successful CMA Fest in the books!
