Ryman's PNC Plaza stage keys Nashville's economic engagement with music community's growth
PNC Bank's outdoor stage sponsorship of the free venue outside of Ryman Auditorium will continue through the rest of the 2020s.
A free event at the Ryman on March 26, 2024, will commemorate the extension of an agreement originally set in 2021 through 2029.
Consider that, by 2029, Nashville is expected to be well along its path to being, in terms of population growth, in the top 10 percent of America's fastest-growing metropolitan areas. Also, the city will likely remain among America's top ten best-performing cities, bearing a robust labor market and access to economic opportunities.
Therefore, the PNC Bank Plaza Party on March 26 doesn't just celebrate the partnership's renewal or the announcement of 30 weeks of free-to-attend programming, including pre-show parties, bluegrass pickin' sessions and CMA Fest events.
It also highlights the potential human and social good that arrives from Nashville's economic surplus.
Three years of sustainable growth
"Our commitment to the Ryman builds upon PNC's legacy of investing in music and advocating for engagement in the arts more broadly as powerful avenues for advancing education, diversity and inclusion and economic development. We know a thriving arts scene is critical to the long-term economic vitality of our communities," says Mike Johnson, PNC regional president for Tennessee, in a statement provided to The Tennessean.
130 PNC Plaza events featuring 162 acts have occurred in the past three years at the Ryman Auditorium.
The Ryman typically welcomes a half-million concertgoers and roughly 300,000 daytime tourists at the 131-year-old venue.
In 2021, Scott Bailey, then president of Opry Entertainment Group at Ryman Hospitality, told The Tennessean that he felt the PNC Plaza stage could "[benefit] not only the Ryman but Lower Broadway as a whole," by offering a new entertainment district to enhance the live music experience for Ryman concertgoers and downtown visitors.
Over the three years, the stage has evolved into a hidden-in-plain-view showcase of how Nashville's socioeconomic growth is aided by the free advertisement of the artistic development of its perpetually growing base of world-class musicians.
Ryman representatives point to artists like Sonia Leigh, who can count country and pop chart-toppers like Eric Church, Melissa Etheridge, Zac Brown Band, Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn, and Joan Jett among acts for whom she opened in 2023. Also, performers like Chapel Hart, Conner Smith, Ella Langley, Madeline Edwards and Restless Road can share their growth from the Ryman's stage to performing at a Ryman sister venue -- the Opry Entertainment Group-operated Grand Ole Opry House -- as Opry NextStage artist development program performers.
Even deeper, an artist like keyboardist Kiran Gupta's story highlights how the PNC Plaza stage showcases the modern-era version of the tale of a hustling artist moving to Nashville on as much a wing and a prayer as a dollar and a dream.
An artist's growth as a case study
Upon arriving in Nashville seven years ago, Bay Area native Gupta (who plays the PNC Plaza stage on March 26), a UCLA-educated ethnomusicologist and former New York City resident, eventually picked up a daytime gig as a tour guide at The Ryman alongside playing an arduous schedule of Lower Broadway and Printers Alley night-time sets.
Before he arrived in Nashville, he was not a frequently touring and Hammond-sponsored organist. Like so many, he played nightly for tips with a world-class caliber crew of unknown or potentially commercially or critically under-discovered artists.
Gupta offers a great perspective on how the PNC stage highlights a route to creating a sustainable artist economy amid Music City's unprecedented socioeconomic boom.
Quickly, well-regarded organists locally and nationally, like Charles Treadway, Ty Bailie and Moe Denham, saw Gupta pick up the Hammond as another way for him to stay busy as a nightly gigging creator. Seeing his earnest passion for the instrument, they mentored his development.
"I went from being amazed and terrified to calming my nerves and realizing the potential of going from playing near to playing inside venues where many of my musical heroes have played," Gupta says.
A chance booking alongside the Country Music Association, Academy of Country Music, and Grammy-nominated soul duo The War and Treaty at PNC Plaza led to Gupta's work in the group's touring band from 2021 to 2023.
"After being in Nashville for eight years, it is important to grow a community built on collaboration that has such great potential," says Gupta.
An essential arm of growth for multiple Nashville communities
"PNC Plaza at Ryman Auditorium is one of the only permanent outdoor stages downtown and a focal point for bringing the community together," adds PNC's Johnson.
Collaborative artists drive this community as much as Nashville's fast-growing population. Add to that number the city's 14.4 million tourists, who generated $8.8 billion in visitor spending in 2022 alone, the nearly 1 million people who viewed 2023's Bridgestone Area-hosted National Hockey League draft, and the expected 100,000 country music fans in attendance at 2024's CMA Fest.
More significantly, free access—via events at venues like PNC Plaza—to the idea that engagement with the arts keys a rise in those artists playing must-see destination events cycles back into fueling Nashville's arts community.
Thus, a cycle is created for Nashville's community of musical creatives like never before.
It's a notion not lost on artists like Gupta.
"People are coming to Lower Broadway and Nashville in general, energized by the potential to have a good time at a party in a city unlike any other. There's nothing like it. [Nashville, as a city] can not and should not take that for granted. Giving artistically hungry musicians the ability to succeed amidst everything that's happening is important."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Ryman's PNC Plaza stage keys Nashville's economic engagement with music community's growth
