The Country Music Association announced Tuesday that for the second year in a row it would cancel its popular four-day music festival, which would be held in Nashville.
The event, which is typically held in June, would have likely drawn thousands of fans to Nashville venues including Nissan Stadium, but CMA has instead decided to hold off until summer 2022 for the next inception of the country music celebration, the association said in a statement.
“After thoughtful deliberation, we are saddened to share that CMA Fest will not take place in 2021,” said Sarah Trahern, CMA CEO, in a statement issued Tuesday. “We know our fans near and far have hoped that the festival could safely return this summer, and while we are encouraged to see COVID-19 vaccines becoming more widely available, we still face several challenges that prevent us from bringing our fans around the world the CMA Fest experience they have come to expect.”
The last CMA Fest was a record-breaking year for revenue and attendance, with the multiday festival drawing $65 million in direct visitor spending, according to a NewsChannel 5 report. At the time, the festival was Nashville’s largest annual tourism event. In 2019, the nightly concerts at Nissan Stadium sold out, with more than 50,000 people attending.
Logistically, the organizers thought it made more sense to cancel this year’s event rather than delay it in hopes that COVID-19 vaccinations would become widespread.
“To produce CMA Fest at the scale we normally do requires a significant amount of advance planning and production. Given the length of our production window, it was simply impossible to find an available window later this summer or into the fall,” Trahern said in a statement.
She also cited the likelihood of ongoing capacity restrictions at those and other locations the Fest utilizes.
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