PRD-2026-053 · Tour Feature · p.32
Eight stages on the Cumberland — CMA Fest, in four days of paralleled diesel.
For CMA Fest 2026, 4–6 June, we power the day-stage circuit: eight stages on the Riverfront, at Ascend Amphitheater, at the Walk of Fame, and at the Hard Rock Café open-air. 1,200 A aggregate, paralleled DCA-150 generator banks per stage, NEC 525 temporary service, four-day Megger and GFCI cycle. Doors 11:00 each day; last act at 23:00; dispatch tent at the south end of the Riverfront, open 24 hours.
CMA Fest is the largest power job on the Nashville calendar. Sixty-thousand-plus attendees per day across the Riverfront, the Ascend Amphitheater, and the day-stage circuit; eight platforms working from 11:00 to 23:00 over three program days; an estimated 1.1 megawatt of aggregate continuous load when all stages are running simultaneously. We do the day-stages — the eight platforms outside the headliner-arena venues, which are a separate contract awarded to a different vendor. Our portion of the festival is approximately 1,200 A continuous peak.
Site survey, eight months out
We start the CMA advance in October, eight months ahead of the festival. The first deliverable is a site survey: walking each of the eight platform locations with the festival’s production manager (this year Brian Hill of UTA, who has run the festival since 2022), the CMA logistics team, and the Metro Parks rep (who controls the Riverfront and the Walk of Fame Park sites under a separate permit). Each stage gets a measured load survey based on the previous year’s actuals plus the current year’s production rider; we add 25% headroom and round up to the nearest standard genset size.
The site survey produces eight single-line diagrams (one per stage), a master site plan showing all cable routes and gen-set locations, a load-and-runtime spreadsheet (in Excel and as a PDF for the AHJ), and a daily-log template prepared for the four-day cycle. Documents go to the AHJ ten working days before load-in.
Stage-by-stage power summary
| Stage | Location | Service | Distro | Headline draw |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S-01 | Riverfront Main | Cat XQ230 + DCA-150 backup | PD-48 + 2× PD-24 | 340 A peak |
| S-02 | Riverfront North | 2× paralleled DCA-150 | PD-48 + 1× PD-24 | 200 A peak |
| S-03 | Riverfront South | 2× paralleled DCA-150 | PD-48 + 1× PD-24 | 200 A peak |
| S-04 | Riverfront West | 2× paralleled DCA-150 | 1× PD-24 | 150 A peak |
| S-05 | Ascend Amphitheater | NES utility tie (400 A) | PD-48 + 2× PD-24 | 280 A peak |
| S-06 | Walk of Fame North | 2× paralleled DCA-60 | 2× PD-12 | 90 A peak |
| S-07 | Walk of Fame South | 2× paralleled DCA-60 | 2× PD-12 | 90 A peak |
| S-08 | Hard Rock open-air | NES utility tie (100 A) | 1× PD-12 | 70 A peak |
Daily cycle, four days
The daily cycle starts at 06:30 with the lead electrician on call walking every stage. The walk verifies: feeder labels intact, no rodent damage overnight, no water intrusion on any inline GFCI, ramps and ribbons in position, fuel tank levels at the gen banks. The Megger log gets a reading at every head-end distro (eight readings); the GFCI trip-test gets a press at every public-accessible receptacle (we estimate 240 receptacles across the eight stages this year, all to be touched daily). Ground-rod resistance gets a Fluke 1623 reading at every gen-set ground rod array.
The walk takes ninety minutes if nothing is wrong and three hours if anything is. The dispatch tent on the south end of the Riverfront stays open 24 hours; two of our six are on call at all times. We have run hot one of the past four years (2023 was a 92°F afternoon with a sudden squall and a power-cycle on Stage 2 when a generator’s low-coolant trip activated; we cleared it in 11 minutes and got the headliner act back on stage with two minutes lost).
Paralleling, eight ways
Six of the eight stages run on paralleled diesel banks. The configuration per stage follows the pattern in P-03 Generator paralleling: two engines on a common bus, kW and kVAR shared on a Woodward easYgen-3500, switched-neutral grounding to NEC 250, ASCO 7000 ATS on the load side. Stage 1 (Riverfront Main) adds a Cat XQ230 as primary and a DCA-150 as backup; the easYgen runs in two-set parallel mode with the XQ230 as master and the DCA-150 as slave.
Fuel logistics for the four-day cycle: at 75% load average across all generator stages, we consume an estimated 4,800 gallons of ULSD over the cycle. Mansfield Energy delivers in three runs (Day 1 06:00, Day 2 18:00, Day 4 02:00) with a fourth run on standby. Fuel quality samples drawn at every delivery; we have rejected one delivery in the eight years we’ve worked the festival (2019, a load that had picked up water somewhere in the supply chain).
The AHJ at the festival
Metro Codes inspector Maria Castile walks the site daily through the festival; the dispatch tent has a copy of the permit and the daily log open for her review. She does spot checks on GFCI receptacles, ground-rod resistance readings, cable ramp placement, and (this year) the fuel-storage clearances at the gen banks. We have not had a citation in nine years of working the festival.
The CMA festival office at CMA World issues the production credentials; we credential our six plus four day-of supplemental hands. The supplemental hands come from the IATSE Local 46 hall1 and have all worked the festival in previous years.
Credit card
- Production CMA Fest 2026 · Day-Stage Power Plan
- Promoter Country Music Association · cmaworld.com
- Festival production manager Brian Hill (UTA)
- Power vendor Briley Stage Power Co. · PRD-2026-053
- Lead — advance R. Driskill
- Lead — deck M. Okonkwo-St.Clair (ETCP EE-22148, RA-08661)
- Crew E. Singh-Hartley, H. Polites, T. Mahari, J. Ferraro + 4 IATSE 46 supplemental
- AHJ Metro Codes & Building Safety · Insp. M. Castile · Permit ECC-2026-1142
- Fuel Mansfield Energy
- Utility (Ascend) Nashville Electric Service
References & further reading
- IATSE Local 46 — Nashville
- CMA Fest — official festival site
- Country Music Association
- NFPA 70 — NEC Article 525
- NFPA 110 — Emergency & Standby Power Systems
- Nashville Electric Service — temporary service
- Metro Codes & Building Safety
- Ascend Amphitheater — venue spec
- Multiquip DCA-150 — paralleled-eligible spec
- Cat XQ230 — Tier 4 portable