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Known for its intimate listening-room experience, The Bluebird Cafe has helped define Nashville’s songwriter culture and remains one of the city’s most recognizable music destinations.
Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe is a small but influential venue where up-and-coming songwriters and artists build their careers, connect with audiences, and sometimes rise to national fame. Over the past 44 years, the tiny room has become one of the most significant music venues in the world, welcoming and supporting songwriters at every stage, from novice performers to established hit-makers. Artists such as Kathy Mattea, Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, and Taylor Swift have had career-defining moments there, alongside countless hit songwriters whose music appears across a wide range of charts.
A typical show at The Bluebird features three or four songwriters performing “in the round,” a format made famous at the club. Performers take turns playing original music, sharing the stories behind their songs, and accompanying one another instrumentally and vocally. The venue’s “SHHHH” policy reinforces its identity as a listening room, where audience members are encouraged to focus on the songs themselves. Because the room seats only 86 people per show, demand is high and tickets often sell out in minutes.
More than 80,000 people visit the venue annually, many after discovering The Bluebird through television, news coverage, The Foo Fighters’ documentary Sonic Highways, the feature film The Thing Called Love, or the ABC drama Nashville. The Bluebird Cafe has also been featured in Southwest Spirit, National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone, which named it one of the Top 10 Best Clubs in America. The venue’s history is explored in the 2019 documentary BLUEBIRD, available on streaming channels including iTunes and Amazon.
For more information visit bluebirdcafe.com.
As the elite pro audio and AV division of Guitar Center, Custom House is the concierge service for experienced creators shaping the future of sound. Guided by trust, discretion, and community, Custom House solves complex challenges for artists, producers, and venues through tailored engineering, expert guidance, exclusive access, and strategic studio design. For more information visit https://custom-house.co/
Taylor Guitars is an industry-leading manufacturer of premium acoustic guitars headquartered in El Cajon, California. Founded in 1974 by Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug, the company is widely recognized for its innovative manufacturing techniques and tone-enhancing designs, and players around the world love the easy playability of Taylor’s guitar necks. Taylor is currently led by Chief Guitar Designer, President and CEO Andy Powers. In December of 2020, Taylor became 100-percent employee owned. Building on a renewed commitment to Nashville, Taylor has expanded its artist relations efforts to better serve the city's thriving community of songwriters and artists.
SMACKSongs is a Nashville-based music publishing, management and artist development powerhouse. Led by Grammy Award winner Shane McAnally, SMACK is home to some of the industry’s top songwriters, artists and producers who have collectively earned over 50 #1’s. SMACK was named 2018, 2019 and 2020 AIMP Publisher of the Year, 2018 and 2020 SESAC Publisher of the Year and has been listed as a Top 10 Billboard Hot Country Publishing Corporation for the past 8 years.
Southwest Airlines operates one of the world's most admired and awarded airlines, offering its one-of-a-kind value and Hospitality at 120 airports across 12 countries. Based in Dallas and famous for an Employee-first corporate Culture, Southwest empowers its more than 73,000 People to deliver unparalleled Hospitality, the maverick airline cherishes a passionate loyalty among more than 134 million Customers carried in 2025.
Since 2004, G7th has been changing the way guitarists have looked at capos. We work hard to continually improve our designs and make our capos even better, to give guitarists the greatest possible, distraction-free, capo experience. The award-winning original Performance capo won acclaim from guitarists worldwide for its unique Tension Control system; now the Heritage and Performance 3 capos are turning more heads thanks to our patented Adaptive Radius Technology (ART®), which offers unrivalled tuning stability by mechanically adapting to match the curvature over the strings (radius) on any guitar. With ART®, one capo delivers complete confidence that there will be no string buzz or need for constant retuning. That’s why we say – G7th is The Future of Capos.
The Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp brands, sells and markets Nashville as Music City to the world as a premier entertainment destination for travelers who seek authentic and unique leisure and convention experiences. Locals rarely see our work, but they enjoy our results from the economic activity generated by the industry.
The Promise of Nashville — where music is inspired, created, recorded and performed – is to provide the ultimate musical entertainment experience, celebrated throughout our diverse creative, cultural and entertainment offerings, and presented in an authentic, unique, friendly and unpretentious atmosphere.
Set in the city’s lively West End neighborhood just steps from the heart of Music Row, the Hutton Hotel invites guests into an immersive expression of Nashville’s creative culture—now fully reimagined. Following a comprehensive renovation, every guestroom and public space has been thoughtfully redesigned with custom furnishings, an extensive curated art collection, and elevated in-room amenities that blend style with residential comfort.
As Nashville’s original boutique hotel, Hutton remains a cultural hub, featuring Evelyn’s, a refined dining destination inspired by modern Americana; Analog, an intimate, state-of-the-art 5,000-square-foot music venue; and the Writers Studios, two fully equipped recording spaces. The hotel also offers 15,000 square feet of flexible meeting and event space as well as The Spa at Hutton Hotel, a 3,200 square-foot wellness and fitness center featuring private treatment rooms, a hair salon, nail studio, fitness center, and vitality & recovery essentials. Across its 246 guestrooms, including signature suites, guests will find a fresh, sophisticated retreat rooted in Southern hospitality and the city’s enduring creative spirit.
Greg Hill, Laurel Kittleson-Cobb, and Emily Olson launched Dream 3 Publishing in 2022. With over five decades of combined experience in different faucets of the industry, involvement with countless No. 1s and their instrumental roles in the careers of some of country’s biggest stars, the industry veterans have built a boutique publishing company that focuses on great writers, great songs and developing talent. Olson runs the day-to-day publishing operations, including setting up co-writes and pitching songs. Kittleson-Cobb and Hill continue to run their businesses and filter in talent with the writers of Dream 3.
The Dream 3 Roster currently includes Ben Caver, Jon Stark, Dawson Edwards, Trent Fisher, Andy Buckner, and Maggie Reeves with cuts from artists including Cody Johnson, Brett Young, Chris Young, Shane Proffitt, Scoot Teasley, Colin Stough, Will Moseley, Laci Kaye Booth, Patrick Droney, and more.
Reservoir is an independent music company based in New York City and with offices in Los Angeles, Nashville, Toronto, London, Abu Dhabi, and Mumbai. Reservoir is the first female-founded and led publicly traded independent music company in the U.S. Founded as a family-owned music publisher in 2007, Reservoir represents copyrights and master recordings including titles dating as far back as 1900 and hundreds of #1 releases worldwide. Reservoir frequently holds a Top 10 U.S. Market Share according to Billboard’s Publishers Quarterly, was twice named Publisher of the Year by Music Business Worldwide’s The A&R Awards and won Independent Publisher of the Year at the 2020 and 2022 Music Week Awards.
Reservoir also represents a multitude of recorded music through Chrysalis Records, Tommy Boy Music, and Philly Groove Records and manages artists through its ventures with Blue Raincoat Music and Big Life Management.
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is a membership association of more than one million songwriters, composers and music publishers, and represents some of the world’s most talented music creators. Founded and governed by songwriters, composers and publishers, it returns nearly 90 cents of every dollar collected to its members as royalties and has the lowest overhead rate of any U.S. PRO. ASCAP licenses a repertory of over 20 million musical works to hundreds of thousands of businesses that use music, including streaming services, cable television, radio and satellite radio and brick and mortar businesses such as retail stores, hotels, clubs, restaurants and bars. ASCAPcollects the licensing fees and identifies, matches, processes and pays royalties to its members for trillions of performances every year. The ASCAP blanket license offers an efficient solution for businesses to legally perform ASCAP music while respecting the right of songwriters and composers to be paid fairly. ASCAP puts music creators first, advocating for their rights and the value of music on Capitol Hill, driving innovation that moves the industry forward, building community and providing the resources and support that creators need to succeed in their careers. Learn more and stay in touch at www.ascap.com, on X and Instagram @ASCAP and on Facebook.
Celebrating over 77 years of service to songwriters, composers, music publishers and businesses, Broadcast Music Inc. is a global leader in music rights management, serving as an advocate for the value of music. BMI represents the public performance rights in nearly 13 million musical works created and owned by more than 800,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers. BMI negotiates music license agreements and distributes the fees it generates as royalties to its affiliated writers and publishers when their songs are performed in public. In 1939, BMI created a groundbreaking open-door policy, becoming the only performing rights organization to welcome and represent the creators of blues, jazz, country and American roots music. Today, the musical compositions in BMI's repertoire, from chart-toppers to perennial favorites, span all genres of music and are consistently among the most-performed hits of the year. For additional information and the latest BMI news, visit bmi.com, follow @BMI on Twitter or stay connected through Broadcast Music Inc.'s Facebook page. Sign up for BMI's The Weekly and receive our e-newsletter every Monday to stay up to date on all things music.
Lamar Advertising is one of the largest Out of Home Advertising Companies, offering a variety of advertising formats. Lamar is proud to help individuals, local businesses and national brands expand their reach creatively and effectively.
Established in 1967, the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) is the world’s largest not-for-profit songwriters trade association consisting of a membership of nearly 5,000 professional and developing songwriters from all genres.
NSAI maintains the steadfast commitment, set by its founding songwriters, to protect the rights and future of the profession of songwriting and to educate, elevate and celebrate the songwriter. With over 80 chapters throughout the U.S. and beyond, NSAI acts as a unifying force within the music community and the community at large.
With a dedicated staff and a board comprised of professional songwriters, NSAI upholds its mission through legislative, judicial, regulatory, and marketplace advocacy on behalf of the songwriting profession with immense success. As a result of its advocacy efforts, NSAI has directly contributed to U.S. Tax Code changes, the creation and passing of the Orrin G. Hatch Music Modernization Act, victorious Copyright Royalty Board trials, and the development of Songwriter Caucuses in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
