Browsing Tag

Cassadee Pope

CMA 2016 Fest Day 3 (Saturday):

Day 3 we took our time getting up. Mother Nature really turned up the temps for the last 2 days and was expected to hit close to 100. I don’t really mind the heat but staying hydrated is a must. We spent the morning walking around Nashville shopping in some of the boutique stores and then went over to Fan Fair X and shopped at the booths over there. I really loved this one t-shirt I found Spread Love It’s the Nashville Way. http://www.project615.org/shop-online/spread-love-nashville

After we unloaded all our shopping fun at the hotel we headed over to listen to some music on some of the other stages including the River Front. It was a nice relaxing day, enjoying the beautiful weather and fantastic music.

I was very excited for the night’s performers. The only disappointment of the day was when we saw a country singer/reality TV star, one I had always liked and hoped to meet one day. There was maybe 20 or so people that were there and someone asked may be get a picture. The response I thought was one of the rudest I had ever seen “Nah” and left. Now I will say the lack of desire to get a photo that day could have been due to the news of Christina Grimmie being shot and killed the night before which would absolutely be understandable. However there is a way to connect with fans, if this individual had said sorry not today or something I think it would have been better received. I was truly disappointed in this but, it goes to show not everyone is how they appear to be on TV when the camera is on. Some artists get way too big for their britches, they forget it’s the fans that helped to make their careers flourish and it’s those same fans that devote their time, money and more to see them.

On the opposite spectrum we also saw Cole Swindell that day and he stopped, was gracious and took pics with the handful of people that were around at that time.

The lineup at the stadium for Saturday night was:

National Anthem: Marshall Tucker Band

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Chris Young with special guest Cassadee Pope

Cole Swindell

Florida Georgia Line

Steven Tyler with special guest Martina McBride

Blake Shelton with special guest The Oak Ridge Boys

One thing many people don’t know is all the performers don’t get paid for playing at CMA Fest because the proceeds go to the CMA Foundation (Music Education Matters).

The lineup again really gave us another fantastic night of performances. Chris Young and Cassadee Pope sang their duet “Think of Me” and Chris sang the rest of his chart toppers. Cole Swindell delivered yet another goosebump moment, there is something so special when they put the camera on his face and you see that twinkle in his eye because he is blown away by the moment he is living. Florida Georgia Line also delivered another upbeat performance. Steven Tyler came out and crushed it! He sang one duet with Martina McBride, a few of his songs of his soon to be released country album, a cover to Janis Joplin’s “Piece of my Heart” and a few Aerosmith hits. There seemed to be mixed reviews the next day but, I personally thought he did a fantastic job and has done a stellar job on his new country album. Blake also sang some of his biggest hits and welcome The Oak Ridge Boys on stage to sing “Doing it to Country Songs”.

For day three attire, you needed light, airy clothing for this day/night. I went with clothes from: http://shop.nordstrom.com/

For carrying just the necessities around CMA Fest I always go to my Coach Cross body or wristlets: http://coach.com

For additional videos please visit my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLzUFhYU32shIwac71Fd81w

Pictures please go to my IG or Facebook pages: @lightscmemories

Until next time,

Xoxoxo

Heather

July 12, 2016

Entertainment Blog

CMA 2016 Fest Day 1 (Thursday):

#cmafest

#bigmachinebooth

CMA Fest is one of the events I truly look forward to all year. I truly feel you get a lot of value for what you pay overall. I had already been in Nashville for two days at this point but, we transferred over to our hotel that we purchased with the package early in the morning. We buy our packages each year through www.cmafest4less.com. Usually I feel you get a good value but, have to say right out of the gate this year when we picked up our package for two I was disappointed with the fact we only received 1 bag even though we paid for 2 packages. Considering those clear bags probably have a real cost of $2.00 or so to them I thought that was incredibly cheap of the tour company not to provide one per person paid because you need the clear bags to get in the stadium and in past years they did give one per person.

We stayed at Hyatt Place again this year mostly for the convenience. The hotel is ok, the beds were definitely not very comfortable which I didn’t remember from last year so maybe they changed mattresses but, they did have a fridge which was good that we could stay stocked up on cold water etc.

First thing we did was head over to the Fan Fair X and were really shocked to see this massive line of people waiting to get in. We ended up being the last ones allowed in for the Thomas Rhett hopeful line. We waited nearly 2 hours and none of the hopefuls were able to get pictures because he only allocated an hour and didn’t stay over which is the artist’s discretion. This is one thing that I truly think CMA fest should change. I think anyone that buys a 4 day package should be given one meet and greet or entry into the HGTV lodge performances of their choice or even of their top 3 choices. Their lottery system is all well and good but, after two years I haven’t won other than an overflow drawing for Jamie Lyn Spears. The hopeful lines to me is where you see truly how much an artist truly cares about meeting the fans. For example in 2015 I saw Cassadee Pope do all of her winners, her entire hopeful line of over 200 people and then additional people that came up and wanted to meet her, she was there over 3 hours and that was impressive to see. There is another twosome that I have seen two years in a row not act in a way that values their fans and what their fans truly want. Last year they would only sign autographs, no photos. I wasn’t in their line but sitting in the line for Little Big Town I watched all this happen. A special needs child went up to them and when they were doing the autograph her Mom who was behind the area where you line up tried to snap a few cell phone pictures of her daughter speaking to them and getting her autographs and they saw the mother and stepped out of frame. This year fans said they had their cell phones taken away until after the autographs were done. Yes they did say no photos but, in that circumstance was it really hurting anything? At an event like Fan Fair X why not do photos, in many ways that goes a lot faster than doing autographs and in today’s culture you know that is what most people want that selfie or the photo to share.

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We were a little bummed after the first experience of the day but, we headed over to one of my favorite places at CMA Fest the Big Machine Label store. Big Machine does it right, they are all so kind, they are all about the fan experience and Scott Borchetta and his team just totally rock in my opinion. We got in line to meet Jennifer Nettles. We baked in the heat for a good hour as the line in front of us in the store was already pretty long but we had faith it would be well worth it. Right on time Jennifer pulled up and they brought her into the store and started the process. Jennifer is an example of a star that does it right. She actually gave you an autograph if you wanted one and they took a photo on a professional camera and also a Big Machine employee took one on your cell or camera too. It went quickly and efficiently and she was able to have a genuine interaction without it feeling like a photo assembly line. Jennifer is truly so incredibly sweet and extremely talented.

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After this we were starving so we headed back up to my favorite restaurant (again) in Nashville: http://www.demosrestaurants.com/ because one can never have too much of their amazing Brown Butter Garlic Spaghetti! You know it’s good when you have someone like me who rarely eats pasta much less an entire plate of it devours it all.

By the time we finished eating we went back to the hotel, freshened up a bit and then it was time to head over to the stadium. The line-up Thursday night was:

National Anthem: The Oak Ridge Boys

The Charlie Daniels Band

Kelsea Ballerini

Dierks Bentley with special guest Elle King

Miranda Lambert

Rascal Flatts

Jason Aldean

All the performers were great. The Charlie Daniels Band had their good friend Randy Travis make a surprise appearance on stage and received a standing ovation. Kelsea Ballerini is such a powerhouse and her career will continue to soar in my opinion. Dierks was absolutely fantastic as always, he’s really made a fan out of me the last two years. I love his new song with Elle King “Different for Girls” and who doesn’t love Drunk on a Plane! This was my first time seeing Miranda live and she literally brought the house down with some serious sass. She’s a fantastic performer and absolutely will have to catch her in full concert soon! Rascal Flatts were also excellent and timeless really, they are true professionals and amazing artists.

Our seats were also better this year. Still would like to get into the first 5 rows of the Golden Circle one of these years but, we had a great spot on the lower bowl and were sitting around nice people this year which always make this fun!

For day one attire I went with clothes from: https://factory.jcrew.com/

For carrying just the necessities around CMA Fest I always go to my Coach Cross body or wristlets: http://coach.com

Until next time,

Xoxoxo

Heather

July 10, 2016

Entertainment Blog

CMT Awards Pink Carpet, Grand Ole Opry & City of Hope

CMT Awards Pink Carpet, Grand Ole Opry & City of Hope Softball Game

#cmafest

#cmtawards

#grandoleopry

This year for CMA Fest I wanted to go all in and really enjoy everything that the city of Nashville had to offer leading up to the Festival Kick off. I decided to fly in on Tuesday and get things started. For the pre-festival nights we found a hotel outside the city as most of the downtown hotels were extremely high in price.

Stayed at the http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/bnagi-the-inn-at-opryland-a-gaylord-hotel/ . Pros were that they did have a bus that would take you to/from downtown for a fee and they had a shuttle over to the Grand Ole Opry for the shows which was nice. Con’s our room smelled absolutely awful, it was an ok hotel not sure I would ever stay there again truthfully.

First stop was the City of Hope Softball game. This is a really fun event every year but, it is sweltering at the ball park so you want to drink a lot and stay hydrated. You really get to see the fun personalities and competitive spirit of the celebrities and all for a great cause. City of Hope does a lot of tremendous work. They raised over $200,000 for cancer research and there was a wide range of celebrities that showed up to play including: Bret Michaels, Vince Gill, Barry Zito, Lauren Alaina, Craig Wayne Boyd, Danielle Bradbery, Bobby Bo Heather Bret nes, Bucky Covington, Jessie James Decker, Charles Esten, Nick Fradiani, Mickey Guyton, Jonathan Jackson, Chris Lane, LOCASH, Scotty McCreery, A Thousand Horses, Tristan McIntosh, David Nail, Cassadee Pope, RaeLynn, Jamie Lynn Spears, Mark Wills and Brett Young. Trisha Yearwood sang the national anthem. The event Emcee’s were Bill Cody and Lorianne Crooks. Here is a video of Trisha Yearwood singing the national anthem:

After the game we headed over to one of my favorite restaurants in Nashville: http://www.demosrestaurants.com/food the food is amazing, I go every year once or twice just for the Brown Butter Garlic Spaghetti, it’s to die for! The staff is very friendly, they do a great job of getting people seated, drinks are great and food is like I said AMAZING! 13339682_10153821441053978_1881419334411035495_n

To wrap up the evening we went to the http://www.opry.com/ for the late show. I had never been in my past travels to Nashville and I will say I really enjoyed it! We didn’t get the tickets until a few weeks before so we were pretty high up but, the acoustics were incredible. The late show had Darius Rucker, Chris Janson, Charles Esten (50^th performance at the Opry), Lindsay Eli, Bill Anderson, Jeannie Seeley (50^th Anniversary) and Carrie Underwood. Each performer was absolutely amazing. I will absolutely go back on a future trip to Nashville and do the tour etc.

13339498_10153826491443978_8497415221145988436_n Wednesday was a day I was really looking forward to. My friends and I were selected for the Pink Carpet arrivals for the CMT Awards. That might just be one of the most fun events I have ever participated in. I will say there was a lot of standing around waiting for hours until it was time to get into position. The one drawback was after they had us all set then they let the general public over and they were not following the rules, guidelines which was disappointing. If you ever do it don’t try to take photos of you and multiple friends. At first I thought that would make it easier for the celebrities to take one pic and get us all in but, it wasn’t effective. Truthfully in many ways it would have been better to be across the street where the general public was standing because most of the celebrities ran over there after g 13346498_10153826834373978_3733456804263070977_n etting out of their cars. However it was too much fun standing there and seeing who was stepping out of the limos as they pulled up right in front of us. Luke Bryan, Thomas Rhett, Cole Swindell etc. all got out right in front of us. It was so nice to see Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman arrive and they might just be the sweetest couple ever. We were able to get selfie’s with S 13407034_10153825327593978_5248686619447114485_n am Hunt, Frankie Ballard, Maren Morris, Billy Ray Cyrus & Easton Corbin.

The one thing you will hear me saying through the CMA posts is there is a very clear line between the musicians/celebrities that never forgot that it was the fans that helped to get them to where they are today and the ones that somehow forgot that and acted like they were above fan interaction. I will say that overall Country artists are some of the best when it comes to that and a good 90% were awesome about it all weekend. I will provide examples in the next few blogs on the actual festival with examples of what I am describing on that point.

After we were released w 13417547_10153824243943978_2073048795064581087_n e headed into the CMT Awards. This was another fun event that we planned a bit last minute and it was really exciting to be in the room and watch the awards show live, all the interactions the stars had with each other on commercial breaks etc. I really had a great time.

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Over the next few days I will post blogs on the actual 4 day CMA Fest! Stay tuned for more!

For all the photos of the Red Carpet arrivals you can view it at: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1010333205710059.1073741833.935628749847172&type=1&l=83e2964bf0

What was I wearing on the Pink Carpet? http://www.bebe.com/

Until next time,

Xoxoxo

Heather

June 23, 2016