While its country music roots are still firmly intact, Nashville is fast evolving into a fully rounded destination that works as well for business as it does for fun. One of the fastest-growing cities in the country, its skyline is continually sporting new high-rise hotels, office towers and cultural attractions.
Just how seriously Nashville is committed to meetings and conventions is evident by the imposing presence of Music City Center, a convention facility with 1.3 million square feet of meeting and exhibition space that opened on a three-block swath in the center of town in 2013. It was soon followed by the Omni Nashville Hotel, which is located across the street from the Music City Center and connected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. When reserved, the Fifth Avenue side of the Omni/Hall of Fame can be blocked off for a Nashville-style block party replete with live bands and food stations.
Also adjacent to Music City Center, the 453-room Westin Nashville opened in October in a stunning high-rise with event space that includes a rooftop lounge and penthouse/entertainment suites with sweeping city views. At the same time, downtown has seen an influx of stylish boutique properties such as the Hutton Hotel, a 247-room eco-friendly property with light-filled meeting spaces in a repurposed office building.
Another recent addition, the 224-room Thompson Nashville, offers some 6,000 square feet of meeting/function space, a rooftop bar and three restaurants by James Beard Award-winning chef John Besh.
There’s plenty more on the way, including a 533-room JW Marriott scheduled to open next to the convention center in July 2018. Other downtown properties under construction include the 255-room Cambria Suites, 169-room Dream Nashville, 124-room 21c Museum Hotel and Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants’ 180-room Aertson Midtown.
“We currently have a potential 12,000 rooms in the pipeline, although we anticipated that probably just half of those will get built,” said Kay Witt, chief sales officer for the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. “What it means is that we can take business that we currently have to turn away. And it will also mean better availability and relief on rates.”
With downtown enjoying sold-out hotel occupancies, meeting planners are frequently advised to start meetings on Sunday, the day of the week when demand is less. Though the city is busy year-round, August and January usually bring the best availability for meetings. While downtown is now booming as a convention hub, Nashville’s original convention destination is the 2,882-room Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, which offers nine acres of atrium gardens and a whopping 757,000 square feet of event space in a location between downtown and the airport.
“Opryland really took a leap of faith with Nashville by building a convention hotel here in the 1970s,” Witt said. “It put us on the map for meetings. Now groups have two great locations to choose from—downtown as well as Opryland.”
Along with growth in venues and hotel choices, the scope of group business coming to Nashville has also grown, according to Witt. While most closely associated with the entertainment industry, health care is actually the city’s largest employer, with tech coming up not far behind.
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“We used to do primarily association business, but this has flipped over to corporate in recent years,” Witt said. “A lot of our group business is related to the medical community as well as to companies involved in medical tech support.”
At the same time, downtown and surrounding neighborhoods are booming with new condo developments to house a growing number of young people flocking into the city. The area is also supporting a thriving new restaurant scene, including Husk Nashville where chef Sean Brock, a James Beard Award winner, focuses on heirloom Southern vegetables and herbs, some of which are grown on the grounds. Located in a charming Victorian house, the restaurant has a converted carriage house outback for private events.
When it comes to entertainment, perennial favorites are the many honky-tonks, small clubs where locals and visitors gather to hear live bands playing rock, country, R&B and other genres. Clustered along Broadway are such famous spots as Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, Robert’s Western World and Legends Corner.
“The honky-tonks are our No. 1 attraction—they’re free and you can see all types of artists,” Witt said. “Planners are often surprised at how much our downtown offers in a very walkable area.”
Nashville is also growing as an art destination, including new galleries downtown and such established facilities as the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, which features changing exhibitions in a classic Art Deco building that was once the city’s main post office. The Frist offers a variety of event spaces, including its marble lobby and auditorium.
The Tennessee State Museum, which offers an extensive art collection as well as a wide range of historical items, is poised to open in a new downtown location in fall 2018, with an impressive range of spaces for private events, according to spokesperson Mary Skinner.
The hub for art appreciation in Nashville is the First Saturday Art Crawl, a monthly evening ritual that brings out crowds to stroll among the galleries to sip wine and enjoy the exhibitions at such places as Tinney Contemporary and The Rymer Gallery. The pioneer among the galleries is The Arts Company, which Anne Brown opened 20 years ago in a multilevel building that includes a second-floor gallery that can be reserved for private events.
“Twenty years ago was not a good time for downtown Nashville, but everything has really changed since then,” Brown said. “We’ve become an arts destination for people who want something that you won’t find everywhere else.”
Nashville Convention & Visitors Corporation
615.259.4700
