There’s more than meets the eye in the Volunteer State. While Tennessee is famed as the birthplace of rock and roll and the home of country and blues music, areas throughout the state offer unusual and unexpected experiences.
Groups can meet in the sky at Knoxville’s Sunsphere or mingle underground at the stunning Ruby Falls waterfall. From the Agricenter in Memphis and songwriting workshops in Nashville to extreme adventures in Chattanooga and the Smoky Mountains, every region has an intriguing diversion in store.
Memphis
As a city known for Beale Street and Graceland, Memphis still has some surprises up its sleeve for groups.
“Most cities don’t have an area geared to the agriculture industry,” says John Oros, executive vice president and COO of the Memphis CVB. Located in eastern Memphis, the 1,000-acre Agricenter International site is the world’s largest urban farm and research test facility. Planners can arrange tours, rent the 6,500-seat Expo Center or hold large outdoor events.
If attendees still want that rock and blues experience, planners can do it with a one-of-a-kind twist: Sun Studio, which launched stars like Elvis, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis, is available for private events. A group can even record their own record during the event, etching their own place in Sun’s stellar history.
The original site of Stax Records, now the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, also welcomes groups. While attendees can’t record, they can have a drink on the exact spot where Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding and others cut their famed hits, Oros says.
Beyond the city’s museums, there are other distinctive experiences in store.
“One of the most unique group activities I’ve seen was a mini-barbecue festival hosted on Mud Island, which is a small downtown peninsula surrounded by the Mississippi River,” Oros says. PageBreak
Nashville
The songwriting capital of the world offers unusual activities both in and out of the spotlight, including the chance to gather amid exhibits showcasing some of the world’s most legendary musicians at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, as well as the opportunity to hold a seated dinner on the historic Ryman Auditorium stage. Planners can also arrange with the Nashville CVB or a local DMC for live, local music at the Ryman during their event.
Groups can take things up a notch with programs like KidBilly or Songs from the Heart, where attendees can work with the town’s top songwriters as a team-building exercise.
Nashville is about more than just music. The city’s stunning replica of the Parthenon, built for the state’s 1897 Centennial celebration, is also available for group events. The full-scale replica houses a 42-foot copy of Athena Parthenos in addition to the city’s art museum, and even the marble sculptures along the structure’s edge are painstakingly reproduced from casts of the originals in the British Museum.
Chattanooga
Southeast of Nashville in Chattanooga, planners have a backpack full of adventures to keep attendees outside. The CVB can arrange kayaking adventures through downtown on the Tennessee River or white-water rafting on the nearby Ocoee River. When it’s time to dry out, guests can take to the skies at Lookout Mountain Hang Gliding. The facility offers hang gliding lessons for the ambitious or tandem gliding for those seeking an instant thrill.
After soaring through the air, attendees can also enjoy an event back on Lookout Mountain’s terra firma at Rock City Gardens, featuring huge formations and irresistible views, or go underground to see Ruby Falls, a stunning waterfall more than 1,100 feet under the mountain’s surface. Ruby Falls is the nation’s largest underground waterfall open to the public, and planners can rent above-ground group facilities or reserve an evening in the cavern itself.
Smoky Mountains Region
The beauty of the Smoky Mountains is unrivaled, and so are the offbeat activities groups can experience.
Instead of shooting the rapids on a rafting trip, attendees can load up for team building and hit some targets at the Gatlinburg Sportsmen’s Club shooting range, which features a 200-yard rifle range and a 100-yard pistol range. The facility also offers skeet shooting on the weekends for non-members, which teaches team members to work together on timing and discipline.
Team-building is also a highlight at Pigeon Forge’s Flyaway Indoor Skydiving, where guests get all the excitement of skydiving without jumping out of a plane. Members of each small group hone their cooperation skills as they take flight within the chamber, and measure their success as they improve their skydiving techniques.
Focusing on individual wishes and goals is the purpose of Foxfire Mountain’s Swinging Bridge Adventure in Sevierville. Participants carry a written wish on a tag with them as they leave the rose garden and walk out on the longest swinging bridge in America, more than 400 feet long and only four feet wide, crossing a gorge to land on Prosperity Mountain. Once across, attendees tie their wishes to a special fence so the wind can blow through their desires and hopefully make them come true.
“It’s a very meaningful experience,” says Amanda Marr, marketing director for the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce. “You really feel that you’ve accomplished something by crossing that bridge, and you can see all the wishes of people who were there before you, all attached to the wire.”PageBreak
Knoxville
The six-level Sunsphere has been an iconic part of Knoxville’s skyline since it was built for the 1982 World’s Fair. Reopened to the public in 2007, the Sunsphere now hosts groups on the elegantly renovated sixth floor, offering floor-to-ceiling windows and a 365-degree view of East Tennessee. Mixers and other icebreaking events are perfect for the Sunsphere, since the round space encourages everyone to mingle.
Tri-Cities
The Tri-Cities area of Bristol, Kingsport and Johnson City have activities for any group’s speed, from pedal to the metal to a leisurely tall tale. The Bristol Motor Speedway is an excellent way to build camaraderie among attendees with tickets to a NASCAR or other racing event plus track tours.
In Kingsport, the graceful Allandale Mansion offers a variety of spaces for events, but planners can work with the CVB for something a bit more fun: murder mystery dinners. Planners can choose from several mystery plays to entertain and engage attendees, or use the murder mystery as a team-building exercise.
Near Johnson City is the town of Jonesborough, home to the famed International Storytelling Center and Festival. The center offers a variety of spaces, including a three-acre park, but the true highlight of an event here is the option of special guests and activities.
“We can coordinate with planners and have well-known storytellers or local storytellers come in for an event,” says Bridgette Ward, community and customer relations coordinator for the International Storytelling Center. “Given enough notice, we can also do a storytellers workshop with a group.”
Frequent contributor Beth Bartlett wonders how far she could get with a few tall tales at the International Storytellers Festival.
