The Nashville Municipal Auditorium is an indoor sports and concert venue in Nashville, Tennessee. It opened October 7, 1962 with both an arena and exhibition hall.
- Venue
- Nashville Municipal Auditorium
- Town
- Nashville, US
- Capacity
- 9,700
The Nashville Municipal Auditorium is an indoor sports and concert venue in Nashville, Tennessee. It opened October 7, 1962 with both an arena and exhibition hall. The former exhibition hall has been permanent home to the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum since 2013. It was the city's primary indoor sports and concert venue from its opening until 1996, when Bridgestone Arena (then known as Nashville Arena) was constructed a few blocks away. Since that time, it has hosted secondary events and various minor league sports franchises. The venue has hosted major events including the CMA Awards (1967), Volunteer Jam (1976-1985), WrestleWar (1989), No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie (1989), Starrcade (1994-1996), In Your House (1995), U.S. Figure Skating Championships (1997), SuperBrawl (2001). Slammiversary (2007), Lockdown (2012), CMT Music Awards (2022) and Ric Flair's Last Match (2022). Designed by Marr & Holman and constructed by Nashville Bridge Company in 1962 at a cost of $5 million, the venue was the first public assembly hall in the Mid South with air conditioning. The venue was built on the site of Bijou Amusement Company’s former Bijou Theatre as part of an urban renewal plan. Bijou Theatre was frequented by African American audiences prior to desegregation. The structure contains a 306-foot diameter bowl with a spherically curved, clear-span roof. Within the facility is an underground exhibition hall and an arena with two tiers of spectator stands. The first event at the venue was a Church of Christ revival on October 7, 1962. The week-long revival from October 7-14 drew more than 90,000 people. The walls of the upper and lower concourses are decorated with enlarged ticket stubs from events and concerts the venue hosted between 1962 and 2010. $3.2 million in renovations were completed in 2017 to satisfy venue promoter Live Nation, including modernized seating and dressing room areas. Despite the auditorium's floor area being too small to fit a regulation Nor