With a little help from friends Buck Owens, Taylor Swift and Patsy Cline, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum set an attendance record in 2012.
Nearly 565,000 people visited the museum in the year, an increase of 15 percent from 2011. Attendance was boosted by a trio of exhibits that together had broad appeal, museum director Kyle Young said.
The year featured exhibits about Swift, Cline and the Bakersfield Sound, a raw form of country music emanating from California in the 1960s that has faded some in popularity but drew thousands of curious country fans.
“It was a great mix,” Young said. “We were able to devote a lot of space to telling a story that a lot of people weren’t familiar with.”
Swift’s Speak Now Tour conquered the museum world, much as it did the touring charts. The exhibit, which included costumes and other memorabilia from the tour, drew families and young people, a demographic the museum is heavily courting.
“You should not be surprised if we replicate that exhibition or at least the feel of the exhibition in 2013,” Young said.
The museum had faced flat or declining admission from 2008 to 2010, the year of massive flooding in Nashville. In 2011, attendance shot up by 24 percent, compared with 2010, to 507,510.
As attendance has grown, so has the museum’s operating revenue. For the first 11 months of 2012, revenue was up 9 percent over the prior year, Young said. In addition to admission fees, the museum generates revenue from sales at its gift shop and food stand, tours to the historic Studio B, events and fundraising.
“We expect that number to hold through December 2012,” Young said. “In these challenging economic times, we don’t take this for granted.”
The Hall of Fame’s dynamic year also coincides with the overarching success of Nashville as a tourism destination. The city’s hotels spent much of the year breaking occupancy records.
“This city, the brand is unassailable. It is music and the city is becoming more and more visible,” Young said. “We’re really lucky.”
Not them leaving out Chet Atkins the man behind the Nashville sound and the guy that made country music relevant again. Loving the mentions of Taylor with Patsy and Buck though.
ffff; the press is still not done with the Lord I see.
And the Lord Her fanbase has expanded to the twenty-sth white dudes (a.k.a the hipsters), She remains winning. I LIVE.
and today I heard people talking about relationships and someone said from their freshmen to junior year (so 3 years) they dated about 6 people I can't at people judging Taylor for doing that i twice that time.. anyway
I miss the days she could slay and not get hated on, like the Fearless era she was on her own league and getting respect, now she's mixed in with them pop gurls, this has to stahp!
I can't at her job being ranked right their with the trash that is journalists.
for the ranking cause my brother and his wife are also bankers. Indeed for me journalists must be between politicians and car salers for their lies. 
I can't at people judging Taylor for doing that i twice that time.. anyway
she was on her own league and getting respect, now she's mixed in with them pop gurls, this has to stahp!
