The team behind Rock Lititz, the premier production campus and rehearsal venue based out of Lititz, PA, and Al. Neyer, a leading commercial real estate developer and design-builder, announced on April 30, 2024, the development of Rock Nashville, a premier destination entertainment rehearsal and production campus anticipated to open in 2025.
In February 2024 the joint venture closed on the 82-acre Whites Creek property, less than 10 miles from Downtown Nashville’s key attractions and famed music venues. The planned Rock Nashville campus will consist of 515,000 sq. ft. of sound stages, one up to 95’ tall, creative offices, and production facilities of various sizes to accommodate the varying production specifications for live shows.
“As a full-service developer, we’re thrilled to be involved in the design, construction, and development of the future of Music City and live entertainment,” said Patrick Poole, Nashville Market Leader for Al. Neyer. “As we continue to invest in the growing market of Nashville, this is our first foray into the entertainment world. We couldn’t imagine a more perfect operating partner to bring a new offering to the Nashville market alongside.”
With Nashville emerging as one of the fastest-growing economic markets in the country and the record-breaking numbers the live entertainment industry has put up in the past year, Rock Nashville looks to enrich the local community with a collaborative campus that will serve both artists and the behind-the-scenes professionals supporting all genres of music and live entertainment, from up-and-coming local acts to globally recognized performers.
The Rock Lititz campus is the hub for a unique industry community serving the live event industry and offering resources ranging from sound & lighting design and engineering, production manufacturing, and touring artist and crew wellness and support services. The team plans to replicate this collaborative campus in Nashville.
“As we approach 10-years since Rock Lititz opened its doors, we’ve been eager to find the next space and partner for expanding our support for the live entertainment industry,” said Andrea Shirk, Rock Lititz President and CEO. “This unique and hard-working community thrives with access to specialized training, mentoring, and resources to help create custom live experiences for audiences worldwide. It is with great excitement that we’ve identified Nashville and Al. Neyer as the right city and partner. We are passionate about growing this network, and Nashville is the perfect location to join with other industry leaders to create something special.”
Confirmed future tenants Soundcheck and Clair Global will be the first of over 30 industry vendors and entertainment groups to utilize the live music and event production space. “Soundcheck has been part of the Nashville entertainment community for over 30 years, and we couldn’t be more excited to make Rock Nashville our new home,” said Soundcheck GM Kindal Jumper. “As Music City continues to grow as a premier destination for all genres of music, the campus’s state-of-the-art facilities will allow Soundcheck to meet the growing needs of today’s acts, ensuring the highest caliber production experience for artists and crews from Broadway to Bridgestone.”
Rock Nashville’s plans include 13 band /production rehearsal studios ranging from 600 sq. ft to 2100 sq. ft.. There will also be one full-sized Arena /Stadium production rehearsal facility measuring 200’ x 125’ + 95’ with a rigging grid at 80’ clear. As well as one full-sized Amphitheater /Arena size full production rehearsal facility measuring 125’ x 100’ + 75’ with a rigging grid at 60’ clear.
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW:
Andrea Shirk, President and CEO of Rock Lititz
With construction begun, further details regarding the project timeline, design concepts, and partnership opportunities will be announced in the coming months. In the meantime, following the announcement of the Rock Nashville campus, PLSN editor Michael S. Eddy spoke with Andrea Shirk, President and CEO of Rock Lititz. Shirk shared some comments about the vision behind Rock Nashville, and how the new campus will support both local and global artists, their production teams and the wider live entertainment industry.
This is very big news, literally. What do you anticipate the industry reaction is going to be to Rock Nashville?
The best thing we can do is really listen to the industry professionals in Nashville, to make sure that we are providing the right solutions for this community. We’ve been hearing for some time about the need to bring some additional and larger rehearsal spaces to the Nashville market. We know from the industry that the need is there. While the Nashville community is the center of country music, it has evolved into a global live entertainment destination. And country music tours have become more global and larger spectacles. In Lititz, this year alone, we’ve already had five different rehearsals for Nashville-based artists, so we’re really excited to be able to fill this need for the industry. One of the great things is that Nashville focuses on family, supporting local, and their community. So, being able to offer the live entertainment industry a product that’s the caliber of Rock Lititz, in the hometown of so many in the industry, I think it is great and is something we’re all thrilled to make happen.
Is there anything that you would say to the potential naysayers about expanding into the Nashville market?
We have a lot of respect for the Nashville community—its history and its roots. So, while we are bringing something that is newer and more modern to that space, we’re going to do it in a way that matches the current expectations of the environment while making sure we’re being a good partner. This is why we have decided to partner with Soundcheck and Clair Global, because they do have a deep understanding of how the Nashville community works. We’re not trying to necessarily reinvent the wheel; we’re trying to support the natural evolution of the community.
Many of the people—artists, designers, and crew—as you noted call Nashville home and will be able to go home at night during rehearsals at Rock Nashville. Talk a little about the support that you’re putting in to the Nashville campus to help build a sense of community with the wider industry. Something you do find when at Rock Lititz.
In many ways, Rock Lititz and Rock Nashville will have some commonality to them, but Nashville will certainly be unique in that we will have 15 rehearsal studios. Some of those are band rehearsal studios, not all full production, but you will still have 15 touring crews there at once. So, while we’ve done so much to create a community in Lititz—and a lot of that’s been around the employees that work here—I think what will be exciting for Nashville is that we’ll be able to create a wider community around all the touring crews rehearsing and living in Nashville.
While we have these dedicated rehearsal spaces, we also want to create a space where the crews can move throughout that building and interact and run into old friends and have all the support they need. So, certainly, collaboration spaces—a community cafeteria and environments that bring Vendors and Managers to the campus that support the artists’ needs. Just as Soundcheck currently has some artist relations offices, we will be expanding on that, but also offering larger spaces for other vendors within the industry. We are anticipating 30 to 35 companies having a presence on the campus to help support those touring crews and artist teams.
Part of the vision is that we have office space, conference room space, and meeting rooms available. Because we do think there is such a rich community of business, tour, and artist managers in Nashville, and we want to be able to support them as well. And not just when they are rehearsing, but also when they are having their first meetings and coming together and planning the tour. We want them to think of this space at Rock Nashville as their home to create, plan, and design, as well as rehearse. We want this to be a home base for anyone in the industry to feel supported.
And that would be the same, I would think, with the support companies on the campus. Talk a little about bringing them into Rock Nashville.
No one is as strong alone as we are together. We’re at our best when we have this whole community of different companies who bring different perspectives, expectations and experiences to the table. Just like we have almost 40 companies in Lititz, we’re going to have 30 to 35 companies in Nashville. Our goal is that we have a combination of companies that have deep roots in Nashville, who really appreciate and understand the community but also, that Nashville is growing. We want to make sure that there’s also a pathway for companies who want to join the community.
In regard to the opening in 2025, will it be in stages, or will the full campus open?
I guess we’re crazy because it took us 10 years to build what we have here in Lititz but in Nashville we’re planning to build the entire campus footprint in this initial 18-month construction period. There is about 600,000 sq. ft. in three buildings, which includes two production rehearsal spaces as part of the Soundcheck expansion. We are going to build all of that from now through the fall of 2025. We are likely to outgrow it before we even build it, so we are also looking at plans for more land.
Talk about how the staffing and leadership will be handled between the two campuses.
We partnered with Soundcheck earlier this year to begin the concept. So, even though we’re still in an existing building there, the Soundcheck entity has already been starting to integrate with the Rock Lititz team. Brent Dannen, who is our Vice President of Studios, will have responsibility for both the studios in Lititz and the studios in Nashville. Kindal Jumper has taken over running the business as the Soundcheck General Manager and is taking lead on transitioning Soundcheck to the Rock Nashville campus. Their teams will be responsible for the new studio spaces and making sure that the environment, the culture, and the things that we’ve learned both at Soundcheck and at Rock Lititz get integrated into the new studios and work we do in Nashville. We will also be building a broader campus and community team to support the growth.
I know that educational and training initiatives are important to everyone at Rock Lititz, tell us how those initiatives will be a part of Rock Nashville.
We want the core foundations of the Rock Lititz campus to be the foundation of Rock Nashville as well. Both Lititz and Nashville will continue to invest in our clients and their teams, but also in our commitment to bringing an evolution and wellness to the live entertainment industry. That includes taking some of the education-type events that we have done in Lititz and bringing those to Nashville and working to grow the community there in the same way. Just yesterday at Rock Lititz we had 350 high school students on-site for the day learning about careers in live entertainment and immersing them in the industry. Our vision is to be able to offer those same high school and college day experiences in Nashville. We have recently launched the Academy of Live Technology (ALT) on the Rock Lititz campus. We hope to bring industry embedded education to Nashville someday as well.
In Nashville, you have a city where, as you mentioned, so many people work in the live entertainment industry, this new campus really offers possibilities for people finding their way into the industry, that potential must be exciting. I know that fostering the growth of the industry and helping young people find their path in, is important to you.
Obviously, I love Lititz and I am so excited about everything we have been able to do here, but when you think about what we have accomplished, I think we will have even further outreach in Nashville. There are 40,000 people that work in Live Entertainment that live in Nashville. Many of our crew live there, so when they’re not touring, we can open our community to them as well. Absolutely, it really does expand the impact of what we’ve been trying to achieve in industry community building.
At Rock Lititz you have embraced what Charlie Hernandez says each year at THE Conference, “We need to leave the industry better than we found it.” It sounds like that is built into the plans for Rock Nashville.
We exist to serve the industry. We want to continue to be that facilitator and that listener. We believe that creating connections in Nashville expands our industry community even more. Honestly, what we want to do is provide some of the benefits of THE Conference all year long—those conversations, that sense of community. We will still have that one week where we all gather at THE Conference, but we want to create relationships, energy, and collaboration all year long for those who work within live entertainment. Rock Lititz, and now Rock Nashville, are about creating an environment and a space for the industry to do that.
Learn more at www.rocknashville.com. For additional information and questions on how to become a tenant email info@rocknashville.com.
