These photos are courtesy of BlueShoe client, Jill Webb. All of the images come from the 1987 Fan Fair, except for the shot of George Strait (it was taken at Fan Fair 1986). Many thanks to Jill for sharing these wonderful pictures with us. She's also written a small insider view of the changes she's seen in the last twenty years during the transformation of the relatively small Fan Fair event (held at the old Nashville fair grounds) to the CMA Fest in its new home in downtown Nashville with the nightly concerts staged at the Titans' NFL Coliseum:

"All of those pictures," Jill writes, "were taken at the Fairgrounds but I'm sorry I don't remember which buildings they were taken in. Probably different ones. In my opinion, Fan Fair then was better, with definitely more star accessibility. I think I stood in line to see George Strait for 45 minutes in 1986 and thought that was a long time. Back then there were fewer people at Fan Fair, tickets were limited, but it was crowded. Some years three of us went together and had a system worked out for waiting in lines (before the number system). We would stand in two different artists lines at a time, with the three of us switching back and forth. Too bad we didn't have cell phones to communicate with each other. I believe that the CMA Fest is now a big business promotion and less about the stars and their fans, as it originated. I still enjoy going, but not as much as when it was smaller and at the Fairgrounds."

©2007 Jill Webb. Photos published by permission.

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