The 'Brat Summer' pop stars are flocking to Nashville this fall. Here's how to get tickets
This summer has been marked culturally by the ever-present "Brat" neon green — the color of Charli XCX's new album cover, Chappell Roan's "Good Luck, Babe!" blasting out of car windows, and Sabrina Carpenter's "Please Please Please" on repeat.
It's what the movers-and-shakers are calling "Brat Summer," a cultural phenomenon (or, for those tuned in, this "femininomemon") that celebrates these new young female pop stars.
And it's here to stay in Nashville — at least through the fall.
Within a three-week span, Nashville music fans will see performances from six of the most prevalent pop stars in the scene.
Mark your calendars, from October 1 to October 16, Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, Troye Sivan and Sabrina Carpenter, Remi Wolf and Maggie Rogers will all be hitting Nashville stages.
Nashville music fans have been pouncing on the pop music renaissance — eagerly buying up tickets.
2024 could mark a shift in the Nashville music scene, tipping the already more heavily pop-leaning fans and artists to create and consume more.
When are the 'Brat Summer' pop stars coming to Nashville? Where are they performing?
Chappell Roan - Oct. 1, FirstBank Amphitheater
Charli XCX and Troye Sivan - Oct. 2, Bridgestone Arena
Sabrina Carpenter - Oct. 16, Bridgestone Arena
Remi Wolf - Oct. 5, Marathon Music Works
Maggie Rogers - Oct. 12, Bridgestone Arena
What is 'Brat Summer?'
Coined the "Brat Summer," the global music community is embracing break-out pop stars Charli XCX — and her new album "Brat."
XCX is a 31-year-old English singer-songwriter born Charlotte Emma Aitchison.
Before "Brat," she was known for her dance-pop tunes, "Spring breakers" and "I Love It" with Icona Pop. "Brat" continues her reign in the electronic pop pace.
Singers Chappell Roan, a fiery redhead with theatrical tunes "HOT TO GO!" and "Red Wine Supernova" and Sabrina Carpenter, the "Espresso" singer and a previous opener for Taylor Swift, are two of the other performers at this cultural pop music movement.
While "Brat Summer" is largely musical, it's also a lifestyle.
"Brat Summer" is a proclivity to a seriously unserious shade of neon green, being a woman who is a "little messy who enjoys to party," XCX said, and embracing femininity, emotions and a lack of polishedness.
Now, it's also political. Charli XCX endorsed Kamala Harris' presidential campaign, and Harris' HQ social media account took on the "Brat" font and color.
The "Brat" mentality has spread nationwide. Soon, some of the summer's main characters will soon be pouring into Music City.
On July 16, emerging pop star Chappell Roan announced she is adding a show in Franklin, TN to her "Midwest Princess Tour."
The "Pink Pony Club" singer, who recently delivered a Bonnaroo set to a massive audience and played New York's Governor's Ball, will perform on Oct. 1 at FirstBank Amphitheater.
To say it's been a race to grab tickets would be an understatement.
Tickets released to a storm of fans who spent time on waitlists and had to decide if they'd give in to extreme prices on ticket scalping sites.
More: 'Brat summer' is upon us. What does that even mean?
At one point after announcing seven additional shows on her tour, Roan even told her fans not to buy tickets from scalpers and that she's trying to get some back.
"Please avoid buying tickets from Vivid Seats, Stubhub, or other secondary sites as they will likely be canceled and we do not have any control over the legitimacy or pricing on those platforms," Roan posted on Instagram.
It's left fans globally, and in Nashville, confused with how to proceed.
As of July 30, resale ticket prices for the pit at Roan's Franklin show on Vivid Seats were $1,770 each. Some seats are going for over $2,000. The cheapest tickets on the docket were over $400.
One Nashville fan, Maddy Bridges, gave all her efforts to grab tickets to Roan's Franklin show. She had codes for two pre-sales, found herself in a queue of at least 15,000 fans, and waited almost an hour in both lines before tickets sold out.
After trying her hand in three regular sales, Bridges bought some overpriced resale tickets on SeatGeak. Then, Roan's team cracked down on scalpers, and her order was cancelled and refunded.
"The entire purchase process was really frustrating," she said. Currently, Bridges has been left ticketless.
Currently, tickets for Charli XCX and Troye Sivan's co-headlining show are still available, as well as Maggie Rogers' show — who fights for fair ticket prices and against scalpers — and Sabrina Carpenter, who recently released more tickets.
General admission tickets for Remi Wolf's show sold out very fast, according to the venue, Marathon Music Works. There are only a few VIP tickets left, in addition to resale tickets.
It's safe to say the demand in Nashville for pop music shows is spiking.
'Brat Summer' marks a cultural shift for Nashville music scene
The remarkable back-to-back three weeks of shows from the biggest pop musicians in the world shows the growth of both the Nashville pop music community and the artists themselves, Wes Davenport says — a Nashville pop music connoisseur.
Davenport is the founder of PØPSQUAD, a Nashville pop music community, and the lead curator at No Country for New Nashville, an entertainment website capturing all-things outside country music in Nashville.
"Seeing this growth story is really cool," Davenport told The Tennessean.
"There are the arena and a large amphitheater shows where attendance is going up for artists like Charlie XCX Sabrina Carpenter in Chappell Roan," he said. "But these movements start in smaller independent venues."
"Charlie XCX played Mercy Lounge in 2013, Chappell Roan played that same independent venue in 2022. And now they're playing Bridgestone and FirstBank Amphitheater."
For reference, Nashville's Mercy Lounge has a standing capacity of about 500, FirstBank of 7,500, and Bridgestone of 20,000.
More: Former Mercy Lounge building will reopen as Cannery Hall music venue complex
Davenport has seen this growth with other major pop artists too, like Betty Who.
"Betty Who is a pop artist with a cult following and she went from playing The High Watt in 2014 to selling about 10 times more tickets at Brooklyn Bowl last year," he said.
The pop music community in Nashville has "definitely grown," Davenport said.
"You see it in the ticket sales locally, which is a good local metric. And pop artists are finding an audience here in Nashville. (They're seeing) more success, they're playing bigger and bigger shows, they're racking up more streams."
For fans of the "Brat Summer" pack, Davenport said there are heaps of talented pop music performers local to Nashville to check out.
Davenport nods to Brooke Alexx, Charlotte Sands, A.G. Sully, Taylor Bickett, Nightly, Daisha McBride, Abby Holliday, Charlotte Chipembere, Sophie Shredz, Domenica Coka and Heather Russell as some of Nashville's best in pop.
"Nashville's pop scene is very female-heavy on the artist side, and I think it's kind of been that way for 10 years," Davenport said.
There's still a good amount of inequality in the music industry when it comes to the ratio of male to female songwriters, artists and producers, Davenport says. "But the biggest artists that we're talking about have all been female," he said.
"That's almost a way that I feel like Nashville has been ahead of the game," Davenport added. "It's been more female-focused. Now on the national scene, to me, it's all female."
Audrey Gibbs is a music journalist at The Tennessean. You can reach her at agibbs@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How to see Charli XCX, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter in Nashville
