Experiential marketing agency for Nashville

Nashville drew about 100,000 fans a day to CMA Fest in 2026. AGENC brings music, festival and awards-show experience to a city that runs on all three.

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Experiential marketing in Nashville

Nashville is a music city with the visitor numbers of a much bigger one. Davidson County recorded a record $11.6 billion in visitor spending in 2025 from 17.4 million visitors, and CMA Fest put about 100,000 fans a day into downtown in June 2026. Brands are already part of that week: the festival's stages carried names like Chevy, Dr Pepper, Wrangler and Tractor Supply. For an experiential marketing agency in Nashville, the question is how to add something fans want rather than one more logo along Broadway.

What AGENC brings is country music and festival experience. In 2023 we produced the arrivals and afterparty for the Academy of Country Music Awards in Frisco, Texas, outside Dallas, with a 115-foot step-and-repeat that turned into a party with a live music stage. On the festival side, Supergoop!'s Sunshine Shack covered 10 festival stops and handed out 40,000 samples, and our Kosas fleet at Coachella generated more than $3.5 million in earned media value in one weekend.

For a Nashville program, our producers are on site from the first scout through strike, and we plan around the things that make Nashville different: festival weeks that fill downtown, a fan base that expects real music rather than background playlists, and a hotel market still growing fast. More on our approach is on the services page.

Our touring work shows how that model holds up. Drunk Elephant's C-Luma tour ran two days in each of three cities with more than 2,000 visitors a day. innisfree's K-Beauty tour moved from Houston to Miami to New York. DIRECTV's Blue Room went from Chicago to Scottsdale to Los Angeles. Each stop used the same core design adapted to a new venue, crew and set of local rules, which is what a Nashville program needs.

CMA Fest and Nashville's visitor economy

CMA Fest

CMA Fest 2026, presented by SoFi, ran four days and nights in early June and drew an estimated 100,000 fans a day from all 50 states and 39 countries (WSMV). Fan Fair X ran at Music City Center, and branded stages included the Chevy Riverfront, Dr Pepper Amp, Wrangler Remix, Good Molecules Reverb and Tractor Supply Spotlight. AT&T presented the Backstage Academy. 2026 was the festival's last year at the current Nissan Stadium, and CMA Fest 2027 is set for June 10 to 13, so the 2027 site plan sets where a footprint near the stadium can go (CMA).

Year-round visitors

Visitor spending in Davidson County hit a record $11.6 billion in 2025, up 3.5 percent, from 17.4 million visitors. The forecast for 2026 is $12.2 billion, and 16,242 hotel rooms are in the development pipeline (NewsChannel 5). That means steady traffic outside festival week, and a growing list of hotel venues to work with.

What that means for a new brand

With stages already named for automotive, beverage, apparel and retail sponsors, a new brand at CMA Fest has to find a role the festival does not already fill. Off-site hospitality, fan services and content studios near Music City Center are realistic first steps, and they keep working in the weeks when the festival is not on.

Formats that work in Nashville

Festival-week fan experiences

Activations near CMA Fest stages and Fan Fair X that give fans something to do between sets, such as sampling, merch customization or artist meet-and-greets, with shade, water and phone charging where fans spend long days outside.

See the case study

Arrivals and afterparties

Step-and-repeats, press lines and live-music afterparties for awards shows and label events, the format we produced for the 2023 ACM Awards in Frisco.

See the case study