CMA Fest week is four days. The pricing work started in February.
CMA Fest starts Thursday. It is the largest concentrated demand event on the Nashville short-term rental calendar, and for most owners in this city it is the highest-revenue four days of the year.
Last year's edition drew roughly 90,000 fans per day (WSMV, June 10, 2024) and generated $77.3 million in direct visitor spending, with downtown hotel occupancy at 93.5% during the festival (MusicRow, July 31, 2024).
Ninety-three and a half percent downtown occupancy is the number that matters to you. When hotels are that full, the overflow does not evaporate — it goes to houses. Yours is one of them if it is priced and set up to catch it. I walked through how that compression works, and what it quietly does to your review average when those spending figures came out last summer.
Why this post is not a to-do list for this week
If your CMA Fest rates are still unset on the Tuesday before, the honest answer is that most of the money is already gone. The high-value bookings for a June event weekend were made in February, March, and April. What is left this week is late, price-sensitive, and often the guest profile you least want.
So treat this as a post-mortem you can run while it is fresh, and as the instruction manual for next year.
The Boost part: how a known event gets priced
Here is the operating detail, and it is part of management rather than a separate revenue service. Known event dates get four passes, not one.
Pass one, four to six months out: set the anchor. As soon as dates are confirmed, the event window gets a rate that reflects what it is, plus minimum stays. For a festival like this, a three-night minimum over the core weekend is usually worth more than three independently priced nights, because it prevents the calendar from being chopped into unsellable one-night fragments — and it produces fewer turns at a higher rate, which is the trade we made through the compressed SEC tournament week in March.
Pass two, weekly: watch the pace. Every week in our normal review, the event window gets checked against how the same window filled last year at the same distance out. Ahead of pace means the rate can go up. Behind pace means something needs to change, and it needs to change while there is still time.
Pass three, six to eight weeks out: the honest reassessment. This is the discipline most owners lack. If the window is meaningfully behind pace six weeks out, the rate comes down then — not the week of. A rate cut six weeks out finds a planner. The same cut six days out finds a bargain hunter.
Pass four, the last two weeks: fill the edges. The Wednesday before and the Monday after. Shoulder nights around a big event are worth far more than a normal Wednesday and far less than the Saturday, and they are frequently left at one of those two wrong numbers.
And the floor still applies. Even in a peak week we do not take a booking below what a stay costs to deliver. Peak weeks are exactly when owners let a low booking through because "at least it is booked," and then hold that rate through the highest-demand night of the year.
What to do this week, honestly
If you have unsold nights in the event window right now, you have two useful moves. Drop your minimum stay so the remaining fragments can sell — a one-night gap with a three-night minimum will not sell. And check your rate against what is still available in your comp set, not against what those homes charged in March.
Then leave it alone and go do the useful thing instead.
The useful thing: price next June this week
While the demand is visible and the memory is fresh, go set your rates for the next twelve months of known events. Fourth of July downtown, which is four separate pricing decisions rather than one rate increase. Fall football weekends. New Year's Eve, which drew a record crowd and about $41 million in economic impact last year. Next year's CMA Fest as soon as the dates are announced.
Set the rate, set the minimum stay, write down why, and then let your weekly review adjust from there. One sitting, maybe ninety minutes, and it is worth more than everything else you will do to your listing this month.
And write down what happened this week. How far out did your event nights book? What rate did they actually clear at? Which nights went unsold? Next February that note is worth more than any market report.
If you would rather have somebody doing those four passes on your calendar all year — including the one six weeks out that requires being honest about a rate you liked — get a revenue estimate from Boost Rentals. I will show you what your home did during event weeks and what I think it should have done. Have a good CMA Fest.
— Chris Hetzner, Boost Rentals