CMA Fest at 50: How country music's biggest party nearly crashed
Tens of thousands of fans will soon descend upon Nashville, Tennessee's honky-tonk district for the 50th CMA Fest, a four-day celebration of country music unrivaled in its size anywhere in the world.
The festival, which begins Thursday, offers hundreds of free daytime sets on stages around Lower Broadway and nightly ticketed concerts at Nissan Stadium featuring a lineup of country's biggest stars. For many fans, CMA Fest has become an annual pilgrimage. For organizers and city coffers, it is a tentpole event — a reliable and lucrative draw each summer.
"CMA Fest celebrates country music — in every way — reflecting how the genre was and is never afraid of always making our space reflect an event broader, more welcoming tent," Country Music Association chief executive Sarah Trahern said.
But in the early 2000s, with an earlier incarnation of the event at a crossroads, CMA Fest was nearly canceled.
The event began in 1972 as a way to highlighting the genre at a "Fan Fair" servicing the overflow crowd from country music's then-annual DJ Convention held at Nashville's Municipal Auditorium.
"Country music, as a genre — once introduced to it, creates you as a lifelong fan," said Robert Deaton, a video director, producer and country fanatic who played a major role in the festival's growth.
When he was a child, Deaton's parents attended the inaugural 1972 event. For a souvenir, Deaton received one of his parents' personal checks autographed by 50s-era country superstar Eddy Arnold.
Fan Fair grew into an annual celebration at Nashville's Fairgrounds, where concerts and autograph signings gave fans a chance to rub elbows with the artists they heard year-round on country radio.
By the turn of the century, country music still needed a prominent yearly fan gathering, But servicing the fans was increasingly difficult, as evidenced by Garth Brooks' legendary 23-hour autograph-signing session at the 1996 Fan Fair.
The genre was experiencing an unprecedented commercial boom. But the industry's Music City hub still deemed it music for "hillbillies." Simply put, there was not yet consensus that country music could have global appeal and the increased interest ushered in by the rise of stars like Brooks, Alan Jackson and Clint Black was not translating to higher attendance at the fairgrounds.
Deaton, then relatively new to the Country Music Association's board, recalled a meeting of the "titans of country music's industry" around that time.
Among those seated around a table at a board meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles were RCA Records president (and now Country Music Hall of Famer) Joe Galante, then-EMI Music's Capitol Nashville president Mike Dungan, Alabama's manager Tony Conway, Tim McGraw's manager Scott Siman, ASCAP's Nashville office head Connie Bradley, CEO of Sony/ATV Music Publishing Donna Hilley, Anderson Media CEO Charley Anderson, singer-songwriter Merle Kilgore and Brooks & Dunn's Kix Brooks.
The reason for the meeting: CMA's Fan Fair had become a much larger deal in 2001, but perhaps it had run its course. As the group prepared to break for lunch before voting on whether to keep the event going, Siman gave an impassioned eleventh-hour pro-festival speech, Deaton recalled.
It worked.
A new home, more growing pains
Even with new life, questions remained about where to hold Fan Fair. Dissatisfied with dwindling attendance at the then-109-year-old space, the CMA weighed a move to Wilson County's new NASCAR track, according to a 2000 Nashville Business Journal story. The move would likely have forever altered the festival's trajectory.
"The fairgrounds and what we accomplished were fun, but we needed to grow the event bigger," said Deaton.
But Nashville's Chamber of Commerce convinced the organization to move the event to Nissan Stadium (then the Adelphia Coliseum), with autograph signings taking place at Nashville Convention Center, according to the Business Journal story. Riverfront Park and Gaylord Entertainment Center (now Bridgestone Arena), they reasoned, could serve as event venues.
Butch Spyridon, executive vice president of Nashville's Convention and Visitors Bureau, cited Fan Fair's value as an important kickoff for Nashville's tourist season. He argued at the time that bringing Fan Fair downtown, alongside the opening of the Country Music Hall of Fame's downtown location and the Frist Art Center, would be vital to tourism growth.
For the first three years at the football stadium, the festival did not come close to resembling the four-night stadium concert event that CMA Fest has become. The crowd barely filled the field, let alone the seats.
By then, artists like Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney, Reba McEntire, Keith Urban had the massive popularity required to tour internationally. But in Nashville, years of Hee Haw and other programs had hyper-stereotyped country music as the domain of hillbillies and those deemed less than desirable in the city's then-emerging business and economic development sectors.
"We had to showcase country music in an elevated element," said Deaton. "Awards shows were always country music's domain." The CMA Awards were the first music awards show broadcast on television on NBC in 1968, and had helped grow national interest in the genre.
"CMA Fest demanded more. What that became though, was part of what I feel, as the TV event's producer, is my legacy not just to the CMA but to country music overall."
In 2003, Deaton shot a "sizzle reel" of downtown Nashville and the "Fan Fair" events to pitch to broadcast networks interested in showcasing a special event presentation in full.
However, the "Fan Fair" name was removed. In its stead, the event now known as CMA Fest was born.
"We decided that to broaden it's appeal, we've got to take a little bit broader musical approach, we've got to add some activities and events to keep people coming and attract new people," then-CMA boards chairman Ed Benson told the Chicago Tribune in 2003.
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"The first step in that direction was to create a new umbrella name for the event. Once we moved it into this downtown setting, it's more like an urban music festival now," Benson said. "And the word `fair' itself misleads people. It brings up in one's mind a more rural, a more agricultural, a more fairgrounds or fair-type setting."
The plan was a gamechanger, CMA chief executive Sarah Trahern said.
"Taking CMA Fest to television with CBS in 2004 and with our current home at ABC since 2005 has grown the event from a celebration for 80,000 people to exposing the genre and event to millions and billions of people worldwide," said Trahern.
Country revolts beyond its past, eyes dynamic future
Plenty of fans still show up in person, as well. Trahern notes that in 2023, residents of 42 countries globally and all 50 American states will be present at CMA Fest.
By 2014, CMA Fest finally achieved a sold-out Nissan Stadium for its end-of-day offerings.
"A festival as a TV special is expensive to put together and broadcast, but 50 percent of CMA Fest attendees, yearly are brand new to our event," says Trahern.
2001's Fan Fair brought in $15.5 million in direct visitor spending. By 2014, the four-day festival generated $39.3 million in direct spending. By 2016, those numbers had risen to $59.5 million, and in 2022, CMA Fest generated $65.2 million in estimated direct visitor spending.
"I've grown up and old with country music," Deaton jokes. From Buck Owens and Grand Opry stars to Lil Nas X and everything we're putting on that stage [in 2023], country music has never been more of a place both comfortable with itself but also unafraid of its future."