NRA meeting will put Nashville in big league

Landing the National Rifle Association's May 2015 convention, a mega-gathering known for bringing big political names, big guns and big bucks to host cities, could help push Nashville further into the limelight as a go-to convention city, tourism officials say.

"Having the NRA (in) Nashville is fabulous," said John Harris, a Nashville lawyer who is founder and executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association. "They bring a lot of people and will bring a lot of attention."

On Thursday, Mayor Karl Dean announced that Nashville has landed the high-profile convention that's expected to attract at least 50,000 visitors and perhaps spark as much as $25 million in spending over three days.

The event is still a few years off, but tourism officials hope the NRA's decision to hold its 144th annual convention here pays dividends by attracting other major groups to take a longer look at Music City.

"We're coming out of a difficult economy and the flood and now there's pent-up demand for the hospitality industry," said Tom Negri, general manager of the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel. "Having that large of a group means so much for the city. And association business like this tends to follows one another."

"We've earned this," said Butch Spyridon, president of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau, which courted the NRA for two years to land the 2015 event.

NRA convention-goers will meet at the still-under-construction Music City Center, Nashville's new convention hall being built south of Broadway. It's due to open two years before the NRA meeting dates arrive.