Ascend Amphitheater — Attraction in Nashville-Davidson

My daughter, her friend and I attended the Artic Monkeys concert on 9/13/2023. We purchased our tickets in advance through Ticketmaster/Live Nation. The box office opened at 12:30 pm🕕 the day of the show. The gates opened for the concert at 6:30 pm.🕠 We arrived shortly before opening and the line to get in reached almost to Broadway, the Vegas strip of Nashville. As the line moved towards the gates Ascend Amphitheater team members were selling "Fast Passes" to those who desired to walk right up to the gate for a sum of $15.00. 💰 As we stood in line, and it moved along quickly after the gates opened, a third party vendor was selling "knock-off" band merchandise for $25,💰 approximately half the price of authentic band merch. Up near the entrance gate, and inside the venue, there are satellite tents with limited official band merch. Inside the venue to the right is the main booth with all the official band merchandise. $45 for a T-shirt. $45 for a poster. $85 for a hoodie.💰💰💰

Across the street from Ascend Amphitheater you have one parking garage.🚗 The sign read $40💰 to park. We were dropped off on 1st Street in the designated drop off zone. Be careful driving down there because they drive crazy and don't pay attention. We almost witnessed several accidents.

Once inside the venue there isn't any bad seating. They have bars all over, bathrooms on both sides and Johnny On the Spots in the back. A 24oz beer is about $7💰. A pepperoni pizza, 12", is 16.99. 💰They do sell canned Liquid Death artesain water for $5 💰or more. Can't remember. I bought a shirt, a beer, a pizza and water. Every time I purchased something they gave me the option of tipping. Aside from the pizza, I skipped the tip.🚫

No lawn chairs🚫. No umbrellas.🚫 You can rent a lawn chair, as I did prior to the show through Live Nation, for a few of $12 plus a $5💰 service fee. They have Clorox wipes available for the chairs. If you don't reserve a lawn chair you can still rent one upon arrival. It's first come first serve.

After the concert ended, I sat in my rented lawn chair waiting for the crowd to thin. As I waited to meet up with the girls, two security guards👮, at two different times⌚, came by and instructed me to head towards the gate. After the concert, if you are not buying merch💰, they want you out⚠️. You leave the lawn chair where you sat, throw your trash...

The venue itself is very nice, the Nashville Symphony is wonderful. We live in the Nashville area and see them at the Schermerhorn often. No complaints there.

The two stars are for the process of getting in. This venue has been open since 2015, coming up on 10 years now. One would think they not only would have this figured out, but run it like a well oiled machine at this point.

The line was horrendously long (many conversations in line were about the fact that maybe they oversold tickets?), and very little organization. Many pointed to Live Nation themselves. Could be true, as the people working there had Live Nation hats on. Someone did finally come out and let us know about the two separate lines about 40 minutes into waiting. All of us in line said: you could have been out here earlier, don't you think?

To keep things moving more quickly, they should have been out with the people in line communicating and directing them more efficiently / quickly. Instead, they left it to those waiting to figure it out for themselves, slow moving chaos.

Many of us were still in line when the music started and when we found our seat, it was only about 10 minutes and there was a 20 minute intermission.

If you sit on the lawn, expect cars with loud engines in the background to smother the sound of the Symphony and let's include ambulances too.

It's always amazing that for a tourist town, Nashville tends to miss it in so many ways, specifically with crowd control / traffic control.

Since the city continues to grow, in population and more are attracted to coming here as a tourist, maybe send a memo out for everyone to up their game? Maybe they need a navigator role outside the venue talking to those in line. Is...

This was our first time seeing a show at Ascend Amphitheater and we were very impressed! It’s a great outdoor venue in a prime location down near the Cumberland River. There are several good food options located inside. They had many vendors and food trucks set up inside serving food and alcohol…even wine by the bottle! They do not have bottled water for sale that we saw, it was sold by the can. There were also frozen drinks like daiquiris available. They promote cashless and contactless payments.

The entry gate has several lines. They were checking COVID vaccination or negative test results before you enter. It appeared they had a testing tent set up near by if you forgot to prior to arriving. They only allow clear bags or small clutch purses. They will be searched as you go through the metal detectors.

The amphitheater had an awesome seating arrangement set up. There really was not a bad spot in the whole place. We had seats near the front and all the rows were large enough for people to get out without walking on top of you. There is also a grass lawn in the back you can bring blankets to sit on if that’s where you get tickets. The lighted pedestrian bridge can be seen at night in the background. The stage was easily visible and quite large.

There’s a 11 floor parking garage right across from the venue. It’s very convenient but takes forever to get out because they only have one lane open and it dumps right into a busy downtown street so beware. We will definitely be back for...