How did the little festival that could become one of country music’s biggest events? Learn the story and legacy of the CMA Fest.
From humble beginnings in 1972 with 5,000 people attending, CMA Fest — then called Fan Fair — has grown into one of the biggest gatherings and celebrations of country music for both artists and fans alike.
First held at Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium, it quickly doubled to 10,000 the following year with a move from April to June in what was only a sign of things to come. By the mid-’90s crowds had ballooned to 25,000, leading to the festival’s eventual move to multiple venues downtown in 2001 just in time for its 30th anniversary.
Despite two name changes — first to the CMA Music Festival in 2004 and later CMA Fest in 2018 — the jamboree has shown no signs of slowing down. Attendance has topped 90,000 people per day in recent years, with another record crowd a possibility for its 52nd annual iteration from June 5 – 8 with entertainment from Megan Moroney, Zach Top, Ella Langley, Brooks & Dunn, Shaboozey, Cody Johnson, Dasha, and Ashley McBryde, among countless others.
Since 2004 that momentum has been further propelled on television, first with the two-hour CBS special CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night To Rock. After one year there the highlight reel moved to ABC, where it’s been broadcast ever since.
“I think televising the festival was groundbreaking,” executive producer Robert Deaton, who oversees TV specials for CMA Fest, the CMA Awards and CMA Country Christmas, told Billboard in 2023. “Unless you went to see a concert, you never got to see these artists perform in their element — you would see them do a song or two on the CMA Awards or on late-night shows. Soon, fans started going, ‘This is the party we want to be at,’ and attendance kept increasing.”
In addition to the 10 stages featuring over 200 performers across the event’s four days, CMA Fest is also notorious for its fan access and the iconic moments that have come from it. Whether it’s Garth Brooks signing autographs for over 23 hours straight with no breaks in 1996, a 21-year-old Taylor Swift signing for 13 hours in 2010, George Strait and Reba McEntire meeting with fans in the dark in 1988, Kathy Mattea communicating with crowds via a voice box while on vocal rest in 1991 or Keith Urban calling a fan up to the stage during a show at Nissan Stadium in 2023, country music’s biggest stars have long embraced the festival’s fan first atmosphere and the unique opportunities for interaction that it presents.
“It’s the place where people who get to sing and play country music … get to actually be among the people who allow us to do it,” Brooks said of his marathon autographing binge during an episode of Midland’s Set It Straight: Myths and Legends podcast in 2021.“You talk about fun, you talk about memorable, you talk about those last things you see when your last breaths are taken on this earth, that day will be one of them for me.”
But perhaps more important than the memorable concerts and one-on-one’s between fans and artists is CMA Fest’s philanthropic side. Since 2011 the festival has raised over $29 million for music education outreach through its CMA Foundation, including over $11 million being directed back into the local community through Metro Nashville Public Schools. A number of on-site activations throughout the week, from local high school marching band performances to the CMA Fest Backstage Academy — a one-day experience where five women ages 18 to 22 will learn about live music production — will complement those efforts as well.
For more information visit CMAFest.com.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy of John Shearer/Getty Images for CMA
