Grand Ole Opry

The Grand Ole Opry is America's longest-running live radio broadcast, founded in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1925. Originally airing from a WSM Radio studio as The WSM Barn Dance, it moved through several Nashville venues before settling at the Ryman Auditorium in 1943 and then relocating to its purpose-built Opry House in the Opryland area in 1974. Today the Grand Ole Opry stage at 2804 Opryland Drive hosts live shows on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, drawing visitors from across the world to experience the country music institution in person. The Opry House seats 4,400 and retains a distinctive circular stage at its center — a design element carried from the Ryman era — with a six-foot circle of white oak flooring from the Ryman's original stage embedded at its center. During each show, performers cross the famous center circle to launch their sets, a tradition with deep symbolic significance in country music culture. The show format features six to eight rotating artists per evening in 15 to 20-minute segments, ranging from established Opry members — an honorary designation held by fewer than 250 artists in the program's entire history — to emerging Nashville acts and occasional crossover guests. Backstage tours, available daily from 9 AM to 4 PM, cover the performer green rooms, the stage, and radio broadcast control areas, with guide narration of stories from the institution's century of history. Visitors on daytime tours can stand on the center-circle inlay. The surrounding Opryland area includes the Gaylord Opryland Resort, Opry Mills shopping complex, and a General Jackson Showboat cruise on the Cumberland River, making the area a self-contained visitor destination east of downtown Nashville.