‘Bluegrass Underground’ Moving To New, Permanent Venue

Bluegrass Underground, a 13-time EMMY award-winning PBS music series, has found a permanent home in The Caverns, located within the base of Monteagle Mountain in Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau. The announcement was made today by Bluegrass Underground Creator and Executive Producer, Todd Mayo. The new venue is expected to open in early 2018.

The series has previously been taped at the Cumberland Caverns since 2008.

The new home will be able to accommodate more music lovers, in response to increased demand for tickets. The new location is also 30 minutes closer to two of its major markets: Nashville and Chattanooga. Mayo projects as many as 50 performances for 2018.

“This is a dream come true to find a cave system that expands and improves the live and televised musical experiences of underground performances we have been curating since 2008,” Mayo said. “Our new home at The Caverns will enable us to add infrastructure with permanent power, professional audio and lighting with enhanced food and beverage concessions that have never before been possible, including a longtime request from our patrons: cold beer.”

The Caverns’ enhancements will greatly benefit the Bluegrass Underground PBS series as well, says television producer Todd Jarrell. “In the past, we taped the entire 12-episode season over one weekend due to the difficulty and expense of bringing literally tons of cabling and show gear a quarter mile into the cave,” says Jarrell. “But The Caverns’ permanent infrastructure presents us the flexibility to match calendars with some of the world’s greatest performers, enticing them underground to offer our fans a ‘deep down’ lifetime experience throughout the year.”

“Bluegrass Underground is now far more easily accessible to the vast majority of our regional patrons as well as our national and international fly-in fans,” adds Joe Lurgio, General Manager and Associate Producer of Bluegrass Underground. “And for the first time, Bluegrass Underground will be more easily accessible for patrons with physical disabilities.”