The site: The park is home to a vast number of important landmarks, memorials and 120 x time-capsules, making site movement challenging at times. The Fair’s site crew had to be incredibly hands-on with deploying and redistributing ground protection across the park for multiple movements during both the build and de-rig.

The weather: This year, we also battled time, as we were up against Hurricane Francine, which tore through southeastern states in the US and caused destruction in Louisiana and Mississippi. Luckily, the worst of it passed Nashville but heavy rainfall and gusts of high wind still impacted the event. To manage this, the production team successfully sourced additional structures totalling 2,150m² during the build, which provided cover for all sponsors who had paid to be at the event. The stages were already covered but there was a concern that footfall around sponsor stands would suffer during heavy rainfall. These additional structures worked wonderfully and ensured interaction with sponsors didn’t take a hit, some of them even saying the queues to their stands were too long at times!