In what might be considered the Experiential Event with the biggest wow factor yet, MPI, the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation (NCVC) and the Country Music Association have partnered to offer an experience for about 20 event professionals at the 53rd annual CMA Country Music Awards in November.
“This is taking our Experiential Event Series to the next level,” says Jessie States, CMP, CMM, director of the MPI Academy. “When you consider that this is one of the most well-known award shows in the North American marketplace, going backstage at an event like this is going to be something that none of our experiential designers have ever experienced before. We are beyond excited about the opportunity and the levels of learning that can come from the CMA team.”
Butch Spyridon, CEO of the NCVC, says details are being finalized for the experiential event, but the plan is to have about 20 participants who will get to go backstage at the iconic music event, get briefings from CMA event planners and take in the live, three-hour ABC broadcast from a backstage perspective.
He says the experiential event is being created in part because of the long and close relationship between the NCVC and MPI.
“We are always looking to partner in what I would say is a unique Nashville fashion with MPI,” Spyridon says. “We have had success over the years in a variety of ways, including hosting MPI’s WEC.
He says NCVC has also had a decades-long relationship with the CMA.
“CMA is a fabulous partner for NCVC,” Spyridon says. “They sit on our board and I sit on their board as well—you could say we are joined at the hip.”
MPI’s Experiential Event Series has featured many memorable offerings, from the Democratic National Convention to the Venice Film Festival to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. States says the CMA experience at a nationally televised award show closely aligns with the inaugural experiential event, the Miss America Pageant.
“Because of the scope and the size of Country Music Awards, this has an incredible amount of cache that comes with it,” she says.
States says that for those who will be part of the experiential event, this has the quality of being “something to tell your grandchildren about.”
“The wow of being involved with this event is definitely going to be part of it,” she says. “But being a part of a high-profile event has gone so flawlessly well for so many years—taking a look at what that entails and what goes on behind the scenes. You’re dealing with high-profile artists, and you’re dealing with an opportunity where people can learn from a legendary event from a lot of different angles, from the design of the experience and from the design of what we would term as the general session—which is going to be the award ceremony itself. Then there are the musical acts and how they are accommodated and the safety and security involved around having that many high-profile attendees. There are just so many elements that we are going to be able to capitalize on and learn from.”