Previous Page
plenary Nashville’s Music City Center
CONVENE ON SITE Music City Center Is Perfectly in Tune M
usic put Nashville on the map — a fact that visitors are reminded of from the
moment they arrive at the Nashville International Airport, where live music is performed on four stages, including an outpost of the fabled honky-tonk Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge. Nashville’s culture — past and pres-
ent — is deeply felt at Music City Cen- ter, which celebrated its grand opening on May 19–20. The curving roofline and rounded mahogany-brown façade of the 1.2-million-square-foot-center recall the warm wood of the fiddles and guitars that helped establish nearby Music Row and the Grand Ole Opry, and the sleek design is a reminder of
24 PCMA CONVENE AUGUST 2013
why Condé Nast Traveler named the “new Nashville” to its list of the top five cities to visit in 2013. (In addition to music, the city’s food and fashion scenes are flourishing.) The city may be having a moment
— The New York Times dubbed Nash- ville the newest “It” city in the United States last January — but it’s no flash in the pan, according to Butch Spyri- don, president and CEO of the Nash- ville Convention & Visitors Bureau. Nashville got where it is “by remem- bering who we are — and having an authentic product,” Spyridon said dur- ing a press trip celebrating Music City Center’s opening. The first invited guests to the center
were the residents of Nashville them- selves. A crowd of approximately 15,000 came to an open house on Sunday, May 19, where a full-sized zipline both enter- tained guests and illustrated the capacity of the eight-acre, 350,000-square-foot exhibit hall. Even alongside rock-climb- ing, bungee-jumping, multiple food stations, and other entertainment, there was plenty of spare room. A semi truck used by country singer Toby Keith while touring, parked at one end of the hall,
“looked like a toy,” noted Holly McCall, Music City Center’s director of market- ing and public relations. Open-house guests were treated to celebratory slices of red-velvet and carrot cake and Southern favorites