Our money is on music, no really. When calculating Nashville's economic success in recent months, all (dollar) signs point to the city's biggest summer sound events.

CMA Fest, Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th, and huge stadium and arena headliners broke records in direct visitor spending and the number of booked hotel rooms, according to Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp.

Let's break down how these numbers stack up to previous years:

CMA Fest

Record: $77.3 million in direct visitor spending, a 3.5% increase over last year's 50th anniversary festival
The number of booked hotel rooms also saw a 5% increase compared to last year. Fun fact: Downtown's occupancy rate was at 93.5% on June 7.

Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th

Record(s): Most hotel room nights ever sold on July 4 in Davidson County at 27,136 filled rooms, 355,000 people in attendance (42% increase over last year), and $17.5 million in visitor spending
~80% of surveyed visitors said they were first-time attendees.

Concerts + more

A series Morgan Wallen concerts, a Nashville Predators home playoff game, and college graduations contributed to an all-time record for hotel room sales the first weekend in May at 75,500.
Hotel room demand from June 28-29 was the second-best on record (74,983 rooms sold) with 97.4% occupancy at downtown hotels on the night of Zach Bryan's Nissan Stadium show, which coincided with the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway.