IBMA

The Doerfel family on the CMT Pickin' Porch

Look at the smallest Doerfel playing the fiddle

Driv learning how to play Bass from one of the Doerfel kids

CMT marketing clan with most of the Doerfel family

The crew - Skip, Driv, Kathleen, John, Gary and me

My first limo ride ever - sadly it's by myself...ha ha

Marissa and me at Paradise Park

IBMA was a two-day event of bluegrass music galore! The CMT Pickin' Porch hosted concerts all day long for two days straight. The stage saw many excellent performers, but my favorite was a family group. Their last name was Doerfel and they had ten kids! The entire family was extremely talented and very comical.

IBMA was a success! At the conclusion of the event, we loaded-out as much of the Pickin' Porch as we could and then John and I grabbed dinner at Boscos before hauling trailer 2, which had been placed outside of the Sommet Center for billboard marketing purposed, back to Broadmoor (the warehouse where the trailers are stored). After all of our hard work that day, I decided to go out. I called the front desk of our hotel to get a cab over to Demonbreun Street to meet my friends, Marissa and Casandra at Longshots. When I got down to the lobby in the hotel I discovered that I would not be riding in a cab to the bar, but in a limo! This was my first time to ever ride in a limo and my driver, Dwight was very nice.

I hadn't seen Marissa in a long time so it was great to see her! After watching the football game at the bar we headed downtown to Paradise Park, another bar in Nashville. I didn't stay out too late though, because I had to be up nice and early the next morning to work for the Titan's game.

On October 9th John asked me to go to the filming of a Crossroads episode with him, Kelli and Amanda. The two artists headlining the event were LeAnn Rimes and Joss Stone. They both have amazing voices and the show was great!

Predator's Game

Jamie hard at work prepping for IBMA

Skip peeking through a log during load-in...clearly this log was very heavy

The Sommet Center

Go Preds!

John and me at the Predator's game

After load-in for the International Bluegrass Music Association event, Jamie and Matt took off for their event in Virginia Beach. I stayed at the Convention Center to help with the finishing details at the CMT Pickin' Porch, which would be the main attraction for CMT at IBMA.

Later that night, John offered me a ticket to the Predator's game. I of course decided to go. It was really fun to watch a hockey game. I could definitely get into hockey when I move back to Nashville. The Preds played Colorado and won easily!

Best of Nashville

Jamie modeling the wonderful CMT swag

Jamie and I at "Best of Nashville"

The marketing crew at "BON"

John and Skip

John and his new friend (oh, and Jamie and Skip:-)

On October 3, before Matt and Jamie left for their event in Virginia Beach, we got to go to the "Best of Nashville" party that was presented by the Nashville Scene at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Bascially, the party was to recognize the Nashville Scene top voted establishments in Nashville. Matt was coming down with an awful cold, so he stayed home, but Jamie and I went with John, Skip, Driv and two of the interns. There was a lot of free food, drinks, entertainment and much socializing!

Connie Smith was the entertainment of the evening and Skip got to intro her. As Jamie and I were waiting in line for drinks, struck up a conversation with a few guys from a band we saw perform earlier in the week at Mercy Lounge. They were from New York, but in town for 8 on 8th. In the meantime, John managed to get stuck in a random conversation with a very drunk girl who awkwardly joined our work clan in mid-conversation.

The Best of Nashville Party was fun and a good way to do something out of the ordinary for us.

Back in Nashville

On October 1, we had the evening off of work and decided to straighten Matt's hair for a second time. His hair is super long now and it had a completely different look when we straightened it this time around. At one point it was styled so that he looked like he could have been a Beatle! Oh the entertainment we create when we have a little down time:-)

Later that night, we went to Mercy Lounge to watch BMI's 8 on 8th. Gotta love the live music in Nashville.

Ft. Smith, Arkansas

KMAG radio DJ, Tommy Street and a karaoke singer

Matt giving away free CMT swag

Matt and I out in Ft. Smith, Arkansas

One of our T-wolf friends, Brad, and I as we were leaving the bar

Matt and I arrived in Arkansas for the Arklahoma State Fair on Sunday September 23. The fair would be our longest event of the whole summer; six straight days. Our trailer was set-up at the entrance of the park and directly across from Timberwolf, a tobacco marketing crew. We quickly made friends with the guys at T-wolf.

We saw a lot of people at the fair and had many people sing karaoke. There were several excellent singers at this event and one by the name of none other then Mandy Moore. Mandy had voice that was equally as beautiful as the famous Mandy Moore.

Each night of the fair there was a main event the fairground stadium. Two of the evenings there were country concerts. One night the performer was Joe Nichols and Trent Tomlinson was the other country singer. A circus and monster truck rally were two of the other main events.

Matt and I didn't have to work until late afternoon each day so we had the mornings and afternoons to ourselves to veg out or do whatever we wanted. Early in the week Matt and I drove to Oklahoma, which was literally about five minutes away, in an attempt to find a good place to eat. We had no such luck with that endeavor, but now I can say that I have been to Oklahoma, a state I had never been to previously.

One afternoon, Matt and I met up with our radio contact, Tommy Street, at the radio station and did a short promo for CMT and got the grand tour of the radio station as well. It's always cool to see the different radio stations that we work with.

On Thursday night, Matt and I went out with the T-Wolf guys. We went to a bar in downtown Ft. Smith called Roosters. It was a great release from the never-ending fair we were working at and our new friends were a lot of fun and hilarious as well.

Our event concluded on Saturday night and we drove back to Nashville on Sunday.