This Day In Country Music – Country Music’s Biggest Party Is Born

We call Classic Country Saturday Night Acadiana's largest cocktail party. It's because the show has everything a good party needs. It's got the best music on the planet. Your personal DJ is here to play your requests. Finally,  quite a few of us are enjoying cocktails during the show.

There is a bigger party every year in country music. It's called CMA Fan Fest but those of us who know and love CCSN will always call it Fan Fair. It was born on this day in 1972.

Fan Fair was first held in Nashville's Municipal Auditorium. It featured over 100 booths and over 20 hours of live performances. The event was created to keep fans from flocking to the "Disc Jockey Convention" in the fall. That event was more industry based and Fan Fair was more fan based.

Over time Fan Fair moved out the Tennessee State Fairgrounds where many a fan stood in line to meet their favorite singers. My memories of the Fairground Fan Fair events were usually centered around seeing people with awful sunburns and suffering heat exhaustion since the event was moved into June.

Fan Fair is now CMA Music Fest and it truly is an event. This year's event will feature Country Music's biggest names and a huge stadium filled with fans. A far cry from the humble beginnings 42 years ago where 5,000 fans attended over the four day celebration. Now that number is in the hundreds of thousands and if you include the world wide television audience several million fans are included in the fun.