Venue Plans & Experience Flow
209 Printers Alley • Nashville, Tennessee • Confidential
The Building
Through-building connecting Printers Alley to 3rd Avenue North. Built 1888. Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. Six stories. The ground floor bar runs the full depth of the building.
The Discovery Engine
No show ticket required. Operates independently 7 nights a week. Tourists stumble upon the hidden entrance, discover the cocktail bar, then learn the show exists upstairs. The Speakeasy is the funnel. Visitors tell friends about the secret bar, book show tickets for their next visit. $50 cover, premium craft cocktails, intimate acoustic acts. The "discovery" experience that drives word-of-mouth.
Suite 1
A preserved 1950s songwriter's apartment. Unfinished lyrics appear on the desk overnight. The typewriter keys move by themselves at 2AM. A half-empty whiskey glass is always full by morning.
TECHNOLOGY
Yamaha Disklavier self-playing piano • ScentAir (old paper, whiskey, tobacco) • Directional audio whispers • Automated typewriter mechanism • Temperature drop system • Smart lighting (gas lamp simulation)
$450/night • Sleeps 2
Suite 2
Audrey's vanity mirror. The lights around the mirror flicker in sequence at 3AM. A record player turns on by itself, always the same song. The closet door drifts open.
TECHNOLOGY
Self-playing record player • ScentAir (vintage perfume, powder) • Holosonics Audio Spotlight • Servo-controlled closet door • Temperature drop zones • Vanity mirror LED sequence controller
$400/night • Sleeps 2
Suite 3
A 1953 radio broadcast booth frozen in time. The ON AIR light flickers on at midnight. Static-laced broadcasts of shows that never aired bleed through the speakers. The mic picks up voices from the hallway, but the hallway is empty.
TECHNOLOGY
Vintage radio receivers (modified) • ScentAir (vacuum tubes, old electronics) • Transducer speakers in walls • Temperature drop system • Automated ON AIR sign • Timed audio playback (Medialon)
$500/night • Sleeps 2
Suite 4
The bachelorette flagship. Sleeps 4. A 1950s honeymoon suite that never got its happy ending. Champagne glasses clink by themselves. The veil moves in a breeze that doesn't exist. By 4AM, the music box plays.
TECHNOLOGY
Self-playing music box • ScentAir (gardenias, champagne) • HVAC micro-zone targeted breeze • Haptic transducers under floor • Temperature drop system • Servo-controlled veil • Smart champagne cooler
$600/night • Sleeps 4
Positioning
"Sleep in the most haunted building on Printers Alley." Bachelorette groups are the primary target market. Guests fall asleep in themed rooms with subtle effects throughout the night. The show never actually ends. Pricing at $400-$600/night positions against boutique hotels while delivering an experience no hotel can match. Each suite is themed to a character or era from the show, creating continuity for guests who attend the performance downstairs before checking in.
Guest Journey
150 minutes. Three acts. The show starts before you know it.
Printers Alley Entrance
No signage says "theater." Guests enter what they believe is a bar called The Lost Highway. Neon sign above the door. Bouncer checks names.
Ground Floor • The Bar
Cora greets guests at the bar. Serves welcome cocktails. Jesse takes the stage. Outlaw country. The bar feels authentic because it is. No one suspects they're in a show.
Ground Floor
Cora calls someone by name she shouldn't know. A glass slides 6 inches. Jesse plays a melody no one recognizes but everyone feels. Temperature drops 3°F.
Ground Floor
Ghost appears in bar mirror (Pepper's Ghost). Piano plays itself. Hank's hologram at end of bar - same seat, same drink. Lights flicker. The jukebox starts playing a song nobody selected.
Ground Floor → Stairwell
Yondr pouches lock phones. Poker chips distributed (red, amber, blue, gold = your group). The jukebox slides open revealing a hidden door. Cora: "The building wants to show you something." 4 groups of 10 enter the stairwell.
Stairwell • Between Floors
Walls shift from brick to wood to bare concrete. Temperature drops 10°F. Sound dies. Distant humming. By the time you reach Floor 2, you've left the present.
Floor 2 • Room Rotation Begins
Each group enters their first room. Red → Green Room. Amber → Midnight Opry. Blue → Lost Highway. Gold → Rolling Curse. During each round, one guest is pulled for a 1-on-1 encounter.
Floor 2 • Corridor Transition
Groups rotate clockwise through corridor. 30-second atmospheric transition (fog, distant music, cold air). Enter next room. Different ghost, different secret.
Floor 2
Third room. The story fragments are connecting. Lyric clues from different rooms start forming a picture. The unfinished song becomes clear.
Floor 2
Final room. Each group has now seen all four. The final lyric fragment is revealed. The 1-on-1 encounters have given different guests different pieces of the truth.
Stairwell → Ground Floor
Groups descend. The stairwell is different now - warmer, lighter, music pulling you down. During Act II, the bar has been transformed: new lighting, candles, the mirror is covered.
Ground Floor • Transformed Bar
Jesse takes the stage. She's different now. She reveals who she is. She sings Hank's unfinished song - the one the building has been humming for 70 years. The melody connects every room, every ghost, every clue.
Ground Floor
Jesse stops on the last chord. The audience decides: finish the song and free the ghosts, or refuse and let the music play forever. Poker chips cast into the jukebox. The building responds.
Ground Floor
3 seconds of total darkness. Then light returns. The bar is just a bar again. Yondr pouches unlock. 80 people reach for their phones simultaneously. The social media moment is engineered.
Ground Floor • Post-Show
Bar stays open. Guests process what happened over drinks. Merch table. Photography packages. The conversations are the marketing. "Did you get the 1-on-1 with Audrey? I got The Driver."
Act II Detail
4 groups. 4 rooms. 15 minutes each. Clockwise rotation. Every guest sees all four rooms.
Each group sees all 4 rooms. No two visits are identical - 1-on-1 encounters vary, choices branch the narrative, hidden clues change per rotation.
The Lost Highway • 209 Printers Alley • Nashville • Confidential