Live Production Complex Rock Nashville Opens

Collaborators and founders come together to celebrate the opening of Rock Nashville. Photo taken by Nick Rampe.

Nashville’s music scene just got louder with Rock Nashville’s grand opening.

The 55-acre property, with over 610,000 square feet of rehearsal, vendor, and production space, serves as the home of more than 30 vendors specializing in touring live events with Soundcheck Studios, a backline equipment rental service, acting as an anchor tenant.

“This entire campus is designed to let creatives collaborate and make excellent work here,” said Adam Davis, co-owner of Rock Nashville. “I believe strongly this is going to cement this community as not only Music City, but production city globally.”

Through a partnership between Rock Lititz, Soundcheck and real estate architecture firm Merus, the Rock franchise and its production expertise expanded from Pennsylvania to Tennessee.

Helping with this project were not just company backers, though, as the Nashville Entertainment Commission aided its progress.

“I sat down with the governor and explained to him what this, what this is, and what it could be for Tennessee and for Nashville, and I could hardly get the last part of my question to him, with him saying, ‘Absolutely, we're going to do this,’” said Deputy Governor and Commissioner Stuart McWhorter.

For many Nashvillians, entertainment is more than just a career, it’s a community.

“We all know what the industry means to our state. The jobs are certainly important. But most importantly is community, the fact that there's a lot of companies coming together to collaborate. I think it's the x-factor here,” said McWhorter.

To give back to this community, Rock Nashville has established a $50,000 scholarship initiative, donated a portion of the property to Metro Parks and provides ongoing support for local minority-owned businesses.

In the food hall, artwork by local artists hang, all of which is for sale to passersbys.

Community, though, doesn't just inspire friendship; it also promotes efficiency.

“As you have needs here, we have such the ability to respond, because we have such a wide network of partners,” said Andrea Shirk, CEO of Rock Lititz and Rock Nashville. “We want to provide a service to our customer, and we want to make sure that they can more efficiently, design, plan, create their tour practice and get out on the road.”

Rock Nashville is off to a quick start, with all 232 storage units already rented out.

“I can't wait to hear all the stories about what people did here to start off, it’s something that I think will be memorable for generations,” said McWhorter.

This article was written by Zach Watkins