Preds, Jingle Beat Team for Holiday Cheer to Help Music, Concert Industry

In between hockey games at this time of year, Bridgestone Arena would typically be hosting concerts from some of the top performers in the world. Those shows would also include some of the top talent behind the scenes in stage design, lighting and special effects.
When Predators hockey - and the rest of the NHL - came to a halt in March, so did the concert industry. The NHL and the Preds got back on the ice over the summer and are working toward doing so again, but live shows with thousands of fans in attendance have been absent during the pandemic, leaving thousands more across the industry out of work.
Nashville is, of course, one of the hotbeds for those in music and live performances, and with the concert equipment already in town - and the talent pool to put it to use - a new idea was born from EAMOTION, "an immersive sensory experience production company that creates events that physically guides the audience along a fixed course of dynamically designed audiovisual installations."

Jingle Beat
, an outdoor drive-thru light, sound and sensory experience, is a fresh take on holiday fun this December - and this isn't your grandmother's drive-thru Christmas light display.
"It was very important to try and distinguish ourselves from the drive-thru Christmas lights displays that people would expect by saying, 'No, this is meant to be like that, but with Super Bowl halftime level production,'" EAMOTION CEO Erik Anderson said. "We're used to working with artists like Billie Eilish and Kacey Musgraves, so we wanted to bring that level of production to something new for the holidays."
The approximately 30-minute, two-mile long drive-thru show is located at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway and is open now through New Year's Eve beginning at 4:45 p.m. CT each evening. Tickets range from $45 to $60 per car, and that admission covers the entire vehicle. Suitable for all ages, the show invites attendees to "immerse themselves in a remix of holiday classics" at the "large-scale visual and auditory experience brought to you by the creatives behind world renowned tours and installations."

The fixed outdoor course features an enchanting environment, including lights, lasers and a 50-foot pyramid with cascading images created from more than 2,000 video panels and 400-foot-wide projection mapped surfaces.
The goal was to give Nashvillians something new this holiday season and another way to forget about the rigors of 2020 for a moment. Jingle Beat is also helping to make the end of the year a bit better for so many who suddenly saw their source of income cut off back in March just before the summer touring season was set to begin.
"That's what we really wanted to do with this was give people in our industry some hope," Anderson said. "We're only going to be able to bring about 200 people out to work on our show this time, but we want people to see that there are other ways to do this, and we want to inspire more of these shows to happen. We know that the industry took such a hard hit this year… but those component pieces are still there. The shows weren't happening, but all that gear, all those people, and then also the audiences - all those people are still there. We just had to come up with a way to remix those elements and let them get back together under different circumstances."
Those behind the scenes with EAMOTION knew they wanted to partner up with another Nashville entity to get the word out, and there was one organization that became an obvious match.
"Working with the Preds is great because they have such a loyal fanbase, and it's local," Anderson said. "It's about Nashville, and we really want people to feel the Nashville ownership of this. This is Nashville vendors coming together, this is Nashville creatives, this is Nashville technicians, security, people at the box office; it's all those people and they're all Nashville. We're one of the few cities that's even capable of pulling something like this off because of all the equipment that's here and the talent pool… It was a no-brainer to bring the Preds in and say, 'You guys are such a strong representation of the Nashville identity, and we think this event is too, so we should partner on it.'"
The holidays are always welcome as the year draws to a close, but this time around, many would agree the spirit of the season is needed more than ever. Jingle Beat aims to deliver just that, and at a time where we could all use some Christmas cheer, the lift you're looking for might just be a short drive from your house.

"Stuff like this makes me feel really good about humanity, because I like to see people coming together under tough times and supporting one another," Anderson said. "On one hand, we want them having a good time and enjoying it and appreciating that they get out of the house to go do something that they feel safe doing. And at the same time, I hope that thought leads down to the appreciation for all the people that it takes to put this together and how most of those people had a really rough year this year.
"Our industry was one of the very first to shut down, and it will be one of the last to come back… So, I hope that it inspires some hopefulness and also appreciation at the same time."
Tickets for Jingle Beat may be purchased by visiting
NashvillePredators.com/jinglebeat 
and by using promo code "Preds" to raise funds for the Predators Foundation. Those who are looking to plan a group event for friends, family or coworkers can contact the Nashville Predators at (615) 770-7800 or [email protected] to learn more about reserving a session and receiving a 15 percent discount for groups of 10 cars or more.