Music City will put its stamp on the NFL draft.
The NFL expects around 300,000 people to visit Nashville during the four-day weekend, so businesses are planning to cash in.
The bars, honky-tonks, restaurants, and hotels all expected to rake it in that weekend.
The Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp says they are prepared for the crowd to reach 5th Avenue and that there will be large viewing screens all along lower Broadway so everyone can take in the action from the stage that will be on 1st and Broadway.
Acme Feed and Seed will be right smack dab in the middle of the party as the stage will basically be outside of their front door.
The owner says they’ve been working with the NFL for about a year to plan.
“We’ve been preparing ourselves. We are the It city. We need to show people who we are. I hate thinking that we’re becoming a tourist trap. I’d much rather be authentic and real. Our stages will be full of real Nashville musicians. They may play a cover tune, but it’s only because they want to. We still look at ourselves at ACME as a discovery platform and so when people come in from out of town, we want them to discover the real Nashville, Tom Morales explained.
Not only is he expecting ACME to do well, but The Southern Steak and Oyster which Morales also owns. He says reservations are already coming in for that weekend.
The draft will put Nashville front and center, in the spotlight of millions of people.
The city has proved before that we can blend music and sports entertainment in 2017 when we hosted with the Stanley Cup finals and the CMA Music Festival.
This year we have even more bars and restaurants with a number of new bars and hotels, so city leaders say bring on the crowd.
“Nashville’s definitely ready for this. Absolutely. We’re on the world stage now and it’s not just music; it’s sports. There’s talks about professional baseball now so Nashville has to catch up with itself and take a deep breath and realize who we are,” explained Morales.
The crowd could swell to around 100,000 on any given day that weekend according to the NCVC.
Saturday will likely be the biggest as Nashville will have the St. Jude Rock ‘N’ Roll Nashville Marathon & 1/2 Marathon bringing an extra 30,000 people to downtown and then that night Jimmy Buffet fans will pack Bridgestone Arena.
Thursday Acme Feed and Seed will be releasing more exciting news about their involvement with the NFL Draft.
President of Nashville Convention & Vistors Corp Butch Spyridon was in Atlanta this week for Super Bowl festivities and took some time to scope out the setup.
“My cell phone was out taking pictures saying, we can do that. We walked through the fan experience and the Georgia World Congress Center is enormous so their footprint for the fan experience is a little bigger, but we got a good feel for what will take place in Nashville,” said Spyridon.
There were other specifics released on Wednesday. Spyridon said there will be 20 music acts over three days. The names of these different music acts will likely be released sometime in March.
“We want to showcase authentic Nashville talent. There will be at least one major act Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday night on the Broadway side. I don’t think people will be disappointed, there will be something for everyone,” added Spyridon.
The Draft in April will be one of the biggest sports events in the history of Tennessee, but Spyridon and the city consider it a dress rehearsal for bigger events in the future. While hosting a Super Bowl is a possibility down the road, the main focus is getting Nashville to become a host site for the next World Cup.
Be sure to stay tuned to News 2 for updates.
