Music + Adventure
By Amelia Rose Smith
Located in Grundy County, Tennessee, The Caverns is a world-renowned destination for underground live music, a magical cave system and home of the Emmy-winning PBS television series, Bluegrass Underground.
The Caverns’ extensive, connected underground cave system covers over 8,000 linear feet of known surreal cave passages. In fact, experts believe humans have been using the cave to escape the heat, take refuge from the rain and enjoy each other’s company for the past 25,000 years.
Though The Caverns opened in March of 2018, the owner, Todd Mayo, has been doing concerts in caves and on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) since 2008. Todd tells of how he first became involved in this venue: “I walked into a cave for the first time Memorial Day weekend of 2008 and immediately, the experience profoundly captured my imagination. I literally and metaphorically had a vision of a music venue inside a cave and started working on sorting it out. I had no prior experience in the music business but had a background in marketing and promotions, and hustling one harebrained idea or another.” From there, he brought a band and sound engineer down to the cave and pitched it to WSM as a radio show to air right before The Opry, titled Bluegrass Underground. The next ten weeks Todd went to work – built a website, booked a band (The SteelDrivers!), found a sponsor and sold a couple of hundred tickets for the first show, August 16, 2008.
After two successful years of The Caverns, on October 8, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, they opened a new above-ground venue, The Caverns Amphitheater, to bring back live music with outdoor, socially distanced concerts. Still, underground shows are hosted in a section of The Caverns historically known to locals and cavers as the Big Mouth Cave because of its impressive archway entrance. For cave concerts, The Caverns can accommodate 850 people in padded chair seating and up to 1,200 people for standing-room-only shows. The Amphitheater also accommodates 5,000 patrons. Daily guided tours include a journey through Big Room Cave, an awe-inspiring underground room that gets its name from its massive size. During the tour, guests learn a little bit about geology, cave lore and the unique history of Grundy County. Adventure cave tours take guests even deeper inside The Caverns cave system and include the adventurous “Tombstone Pass.”
Since it is the spooky season, we had to ask if there were any ghost stories or seasonal happenings at The Caverns. Todd answered, “Well, many myths and folklore legends surround the cave and area.” Additionally, The Caverns is offering special Halloween tours and events in October. Specifically, on October 29th, there will be the 70s, 80s and 90s Halloween Disco Party inside the cave, complete with DJ Captain Caveman and a costume contest – It will be a cavetastic night! Then, on Sunday, October 30th, there will be a screening of The Descent inside the cave. Todd jokes, “watching The Descent –a horror movie about a group of women that go spelunking– in a cave is like watching Jaws on a raft in the ocean!
On October 8th and 9th, The Caverns will host its first festival, Cavefest, a three-day camping and cave fest with multiple stages, late-night jams, cool vendors, yoga in the cave and a whole bunch more!
Todd admits, “It’s pretty cool that seventy-three percent of all The Caverns patrons come from outside Tennessee! It’s probably the country’s largest destination music venue, and we love seeing the license plates from all over”... Which perfectly aligns with their tagline, ‘The Caverns: where the destination becomes the journey!’
The Caverns offer much more than music! Between the campgrounds, daily tours of the show cave and an outstanding show schedule, there is something for all. Those interested can visit thecaverns.com for more information.
