Nashville sells music, and a store that sells music merch has an unusually clear calendar. CMA Fest's own site lists its 2027 edition as June 10 to 13, the city's July 4th celebration drew a record 365,000 people in 2025 according to the visitors bureau, and the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp says visitors to Davidson County spent a record 11.2 billion dollars in 2024. Those are windows with a reason to buy a shirt, a poster or a hat in multiples. A merch table is also where a buy-three offer makes sense: three small items, one discounted. This page gives the dates from the organizers, the local tax rate a Nashville customer pays and a plan that uses the cheapest-item discount without breaking the rules on the word free.
Price the free item. Because the cheapest of three is the one discounted, your worst case on every qualifying cart is the price of your lowest-priced eligible item. Check that the margin on the other two covers it, and keep the lowest-priced items out of the offer if they do not.
Put the condition in the offer line, not in a footnote. The FTC's guide says terms should appear clearly and conspicuously at the outset and that an asterisk footnote does not count, so write buy any three, cheapest one free, before tax in the same line.
Source: eCFR: 16 CFR 251.1, Guide concerning use of the word Free (paragraph c)
Run the offer for the festival's four days and end it on June 13. A four day window gives the banner a reason to exist and gives you a count of days to plan stock against.
Source: CMA Fest
Plan a second window for July and leave the exact dates open. The event's site lists July 3 to 4 for 2026 and no 2027 dates, so confirm the dates before you publish and cap the offer to the weekend.
Source: Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp: Music City July 4th fun facts
Use item prices before tax for any threshold. Davidson County's local rate is 2.75 percent, so a cart of three items at a round number will land on a different total at checkout, and a banner that compares tax-inclusive totals will confuse buyers.
Build it with the Cheapest or most expensive item template.
Requires: Growth plan or higher.
Schedule a merch offer for June 10 to 13, 2027, the festival's own dates: buy three eligible items and the cheapest of the three is free. The discount cost is capped by the price of your lowest item, so you can state the most you can lose on any cart before the first day.
Source: CMA Fest
The city's celebration drew 365,000 people in 2025 and its site lists only 2026 dates, so build a July offer as a month-level window now. Fix the exact start and end the day the 2027 dates are posted, and end the offer when the event ends.
Source: Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp: Music City July 4th fun facts
A Nashville customer pays 2.75 percent local tax on top of the state rate, so a banner that says the cheapest item is free should say it applies to item prices before tax. The rate is the Department's, effective Feb. 1, 2025.
Nashville pairs a large visitor economy with music and merchandise retail, so a Shopify store with band, tour or souvenir products can tie multi-item offers to dated festival weekends and holiday crowds.
CMA Fest's site lists the 2027 festival as June 10 to 13, 2027, and shows the 2026 festival as June 4 to 7, 2026.
CMA Fest (accessed October 10, 2026)
The Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp reported on Aug. 26, 2025 that daily and overnight visitors to Davidson County totaled 16.9 million in 2024 and that visitors spent a record 11.2 billion dollars, using data from Tourism Economics and the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development.
Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp: press release, Aug. 26, 2025 (accessed October 10, 2026)
The visitors bureau's Music City July 4th page says the celebration drew a record-breaking 365,000 people in 2025, generating a record 23.8 million dollars in estimated direct visitor spending, and lists its 2026 dates as July 3 to 4 with no 2027 dates posted.
Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp: Music City July 4th fun facts (accessed October 10, 2026)
The Tennessee Department of Revenue's notice says voters in Davidson County approved a 0.5 percent surcharge on the local option sales tax, effectively raising the local sales tax rate to 2.75 percent, effective Feb. 1, 2025.
Tennessee Department of Revenue: Important Notice, Change of Local Tax Rate, Davidson County (Dec. 3, 2024) (accessed October 10, 2026)
The Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 estimate for the Nashville-Davidson metropolitan government (balance) is 721,074 residents, 20th among the incorporated places in the dataset.
U.S. Census Bureau: Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places (Vintage 2025, SUB-EST2025) (accessed October 10, 2026)
The visitors bureau's statistics page lists 43,108 hotel rooms in Davidson County and 2,888 rooms at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, with no year given for either figure.
Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp: Nashville population and city statistics (accessed October 10, 2026)
The FTC's guide on the word free says all terms and conditions on which receipt of the free item depends should be set out clearly and conspicuously at the outset of the offer, and that a footnote reached by an asterisk does not count as disclosure at the outset.
eCFR: 16 CFR 251.1, Guide concerning use of the word Free (paragraph c) (accessed October 10, 2026)
Not tax advice. Confirm current rules with the state revenue department before you rely on a date or an exemption.
Requires: Growth plan or higher.
