Nashville, TN (July 9, 2025)—CMA Fest is one of Nashville’s biggest annual events, bringing artists and their fans together for four days of music and fun. This year’s edition, held in June, attracted an estimated 95,000 fans to Music City

One of this year’s must-see venues was the Hard Rock Stage, which hosted more than 60 performances. Bringing the music to the masses there was Franklin, TN-based Integrated Production Solutions (IPS), which tackled audio production for the site.

“There was no room for error with that many handoffs,” admitted Nick Brown, CEO of IPS and CMA Account Executive for the project. With that in mind, IPS fielded gear from d&b audiotechnik, DiGiCo and Shure, among others, to answer artists’ needs and keep things moving smoothly.

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Both the FOH and monitor mix positions were centered around DiGiCo Quantum 225 consoles. While engineers were familiar with the popular desks and often had showfiles for them, the consoles’ ability to enable fast routing changes came into play as well. Ryan Shelton, a DiGiCo representative onsite at the stage, noted, “When a signal lands on the wrong channel—something that happens often at fast-paced festivals—engineers can re-patch instantly from the channel strip without leaving the main view. It keeps everything fast and intuitive, especially during line checks.”

The stage’s P.A. was a d&b audiotechnik rig, based around V-Series tops, SL-GSubs, and Y10P front fills, all powered by D40 and D90 Touring Racks. While the Hard Rock Stage had MAX2 wedges on hand, most artists opted for Shure ADX/ADPSM in-ear systems, coordinated through RF Venue Diversity Fin antennas and a full Axient Digital wireless platform.

“Festivals like CMA Fest post major challenges for RF, especially in high channel count, mission-critical applications where wireless audio must have bulletproof reliability,” said Kevin Duthu, HWPco/Shure Representative. “Being in downtown Nashville, urban spectrum congestion is already crowded, and adding a festival on top of that is no easy feat. Axient Digital eliminates a lot of hurdles needed to put a show of this scale on, with its wide tuning capabilities, frequency diversity, interference detection and avoidance, networking, and encryption, ensuring confidence for both engineers and artists.”

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“With so many acts and so little time, equipment selection had to be about reliability and familiarity,” said Nick Brown. “We’ve built a strong partnership with CMA over the years, and our team delivered at every level. I’m incredibly proud of how everyone showed up and handled the intensity of the schedule.”

Next year’s edition, The 53rd CMA Fest, will take place in Nashville from Thursday, June 4 through Sunday, June 7, 2026.