Rock Lititz Expands with a New Hub for the Live Entertainment Industry
The team behind Rock Lititz — the prominent production campus and rehearsal venue based out of Lititz, PA — and Al. Neyer, a leading commercial real estate developer and design-builder, announced on April 30, 2024, the development of Rock Nashville, an ambitious entertainment rehearsal and production campus that is expected to open in 2025.
In February 2024, the joint venture closed on the 82-acre Whites Creek property, less than 10 miles from downtown Nashville’s key attractions and famed music venues. The planned Rock Nashville campus will consist of 515,000 sq. ft. of sound stages, one up to 95’ tall, along with creative offices and production facilities of various sizes to accommodate the varying production specifications for live shows.
“As a full-service developer, we’re thrilled to be involved in the design, construction, and development of the future of Music City and live entertainment,” said Patrick Poole, Nashville market leader for Al. Neyer. “As we continue to invest in the growing market of Nashville, this is our first foray into the entertainment world. We couldn’t imagine a more perfect operating partner to bring a new offering to the Nashville market alongside.”
With Nashville emerging as one of the fastest-growing economic markets in the country and the record-breaking numbers the live entertainment industry has put up in the past year, Rock Nashville looks to enrich the local community with a collaborative campus that will serve both artists and the behind-the-scenes professionals supporting all genres of music and live entertainment, from up-and-coming local acts to globally recognized performers.
The Rock Lititz campus is the hub for a unique industry community serving the live event industry and offering resources ranging from sound and lighting design and engineering, production manufacturing, and touring artist and crew wellness and support services. The team plans to replicate this collaborative campus in Nashville.
“As we approach 10-years since Rock Lititz opened its doors, we’ve been eager to find the next space and partner for expanding our support for the live entertainment industry,” said Andrea Shirk, Rock Lititz president and CEO. “This unique and hard-working community thrives with access to specialized training, mentoring, and resources to help create custom live experiences for audiences worldwide. It is with great excitement that we’ve identified Nashville and Al. Neyer as the right city and partner. We are passionate about growing this network, and Nashville is the perfect location to join with other industry leaders to create something special.”
Confirmed future tenants SoundCheck and Clair Global will be the first of more than 30 industry vendors and entertainment groups to utilize the live music and event production space. “SoundCheck has been part of the Nashville entertainment community for over 30 years, and we couldn’t be more excited to make Rock Nashville our new home,” said SoundCheck GM Kindal Jumper. “As Music City continues to grow as a premier destination for all genres of music, the campus’ state-of-the-art facilities will allow SoundCheck to meet the growing needs of today’s acts, ensuring the highest caliber production experience for artists and crews from Broadway to Bridgestone.”
Rock Nashville’s plans include 13 band and production rehearsal studios ranging from 600 to 2,100 square feet. There will also be one full-sized arena /stadium production rehearsal facility measuring 200’ x 125’ x 95’ with a rigging grid at 80.’ Plans also call for an amphitheater/arena-sized full production rehearsal facility measuring 125’ x 100’ + 75’ with a rigging grid at 60.’
“We’ve been hearing for some time about the need to bring some additional and larger rehearsal spaces to the Nashville market,” said Shirk, in a Q&A interview with Michael S. Eddy, editor of FRONT of HOUSE’s sister publication, PLSN (See PLSN, May 2024, page 40 for full interview). Along with its longtime status as “the center of country music,” Nashville has “evolved into a global live entertainment destination,” she added. “In Lititz, this year alone, we’ve already had five different rehearsals for Nashville-based artists, so we’re really excited to be able to fill this need for the industry.”
Despite the similarities, Rock Nashville “will certainly be unique in that we will have 15 rehearsal studios,” Shirk continued. “Some of those are band rehearsal studios, not all full production, but you will still have 15 touring crews there at once. So, while we’ve done so much to create a community in Lititz — and a lot of that’s been around the employees that work here — I think what will be exciting for Nashville is that we’ll be able to create a wider community around all the touring crews rehearsing and living in Nashville.”
Anticipating “30 to 35 companies having a presence on the campus” — almost as many as the close to 40 companies at Rock Lititz — Shirk envisions a production hub with an appeal that will extend beyond dedicated rehearsal spaces alone. “We also want to create a space where the crews can move throughout that building and interact and run into old friends and have all the support they need. So, certainly, collaboration spaces — a community cafeteria and environments that bring vendors and managers to the campus that supports the artists’ needs. Just as SoundCheck currently has some artist relations offices, we will be expanding on that, but also offering larger spaces for other vendors within the industry.
“Part of the vision is that we have office space, conference room space and meeting rooms available,” Shirk continued. “Because we do think there is such a rich community of business, tour and artist managers in Nashville, and we want to be able to support them as well. And not just when they are rehearsing, but also when they are having their first meetings and coming together and planning the tour…Our goal is that we have a combination of companies that have deep roots in Nashville, who really appreciate and understand the community but also, that Nashville is growing. We want to make sure that there’s also a pathway for companies who want to join the community.”
Shirk acknowledged that the timeline for opening the campus is ambitious. “I guess we’re crazy because it took us 10 years to build what we have here in Lititz, but in Nashville we’re planning to build the entire campus footprint in this initial 18-month construction period. There is about 600,000 square feet in three buildings, which includes two production rehearsal spaces as part of the SoundCheck expansion. We are going to build all of that from now through the fall of 2025. We are likely to outgrow it before we even build it, so we are also looking at plans for more land.”
Shirk noted that the plans for Rock Nashville kicked off with Rock Lititz’s partnership with SoundCheck, forged earlier this year. “The SoundCheck entity has already been starting to integrate with the Rock Lititz team. Brent Dannen, our vice-president of studios, will have responsibility for both the studios in Lititz and the studios in Nashville. Kindal Jumper has taken over running the business as the SoundCheck general manager and is taking lead on transitioning SoundCheck to the Rock Nashville campus. Their teams will be responsible for the new studio spaces and making sure that the environment, the culture, and the things that we’ve learned both at SoundCheck and at Rock Lititz get integrated into the new studios and work we do in Nashville. We will also be building a broader campus and community team to support the growth.”
While not identical to Rock Lititz, there will be many common threads to the two production hubs, Shirk added. “Both Lititz and Nashville will continue to invest in our clients and their teams, but also in our commitment to bringing an evolution and wellness to the live entertainment industry. That includes taking some of the education-type events that we have done in Lititz and bringing those to Nashville and working to grow the community there in the same way. Just yesterday at Rock Lititz, we had 350 high school students on-site for the day learning about careers in live entertainment and immersing them in the industry. Our vision is to be able to offer those same high school and college day experiences in Nashville. We have recently launched the Academy of Live Technology (ALT) on the Rock Lititz campus. We hope to bring industry-embedded education to Nashville someday as well.”
Learn more about Rock Nashville at www.rocknashville.com
