Nashville Dance Fest is back for Labor Day weekend, taking over Music Valley from Friday, Sept. 4 through Sunday, Sept. 6 with eight dance floors, live concerts, and dance lessons for every skill level. Festival instructors will teach line dancing and two-stepping to attendees who need no assigned partner to join in, and organizers say the event welcomes everyone, from total beginners to competitive dancers.
As reported by News Channel 5 Nashville, the festival includes concerts, easy dance moves, and competitions alongside its instructional offerings, with event details and tickets available at nashvilledancefest.com. The festival has grown considerably since its start: it was co-founded in 2023 by dance event organizers Taylor Winston and Adia Nuño, who launched the first iteration in January 2024 before settling into its now-annual Labor Day weekend slot, according to Visit Music City. Attendance climbed from roughly 1,000 people in its first year to nearly 2,000 in 2025, per the same account.
Country Headliners Anchor the Main Stage
Country hitmakers Eric Paslay and Love and Theft are set to headline the 2026 main stage concert lineup, with supporting sets from Angie K, Browning Snider, Josiah Siska, Kylie Frey, Kaleb Sanders, and MOSS, according to MusicRow. The lineup gives the dance-focused weekend a genuine concert pedigree, pairing chart-topping country acts with the convention's wall-to-wall instructional schedule.
Festival weekend actually starts a day early. Thursday, Sept. 3 brings a free launch party at Luke Combs' downtown venue, Category 10, featuring live sets from Myles Erlick and Cody Bradley. The multi-story honky-tonk sits on 2nd Avenue downtown, giving the festival a foothold beyond its usual Music Valley footprint before the main event begins.
Eight Dance Floors Spread Across Music Valley
The festival occupies more than 90,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space spanning The Nashville Palace and Scoreboard Bar & Grill, according to Tixr's event listing. That includes eight total dance floors, five of them outdoor tented setups that turn the surrounding Music Valley properties into a sprawling open-air dance complex.
The Nashville Palace itself carries some country music history. The venue sits across from the Grand Ole Opry and is where stars Randy Travis and Ricky Van Shelton got their start, according to a 2014 Nashville Meeting Planning Guide published on Calaméo. Travis reportedly worked as a dishwasher and cook at the Palace while he was building his early music career there.
More Than 70 Workshops, No Partner Required
Daytime programming centers on more than 70 instructional workshops covering line dancing, country swing, two-step, cha-cha, and dips and tricks, structured for all experience levels, according to Visit Music City. Festival instructors require no dance partner to participate, meaning solo attendees can jump into any session running throughout the day before the evening concerts take over.
Ticket prices range from $39 for single-day evening concert and social passes valid after 6 p.m. to $126 for full single-day general admission tickets that include daytime workshop access, per Tixr's listing for the event. The lower-tier evening passes cover social dancing and main stage shows without requiring entry to the daytime workshop sessions.
National Titles and Championship Stakes
Beyond the workshops, the 2026 event hosts the Honky Tonk World Championships along with a qualifier for the Standard Western Line Dance Showdown, offering cash prizes and custom buckles across partner, team, and line dance divisions, MusicRow reports. Winning pairs and teams can earn Golden Tickets that waive entry fees for championship rounds down the line.
Some of the competition divisions carry official sanctioning from national organizations including the Country Two Step Tour, according to Danceplace, allowing competitive participants to bank points toward national standings. That sanctioning is part of why the festival draws dancers from all over rather than functioning strictly as a local meetup.
Co-founder Adia Nuño also co-owns KickStart Country Events and produces the YESSS!! Dance Convention, which draws over 1,500 dancers annually, according to CanvasRebel. Her broader résumé in country dance production helps explain how Nashville Dance Fest expanded so quickly from a workshop gathering into a festival built around concerts, competitions, and national dance-tour stakes.
