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City officials making more accommodations for downtown party on Monday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – The fight for the cup continues Monday night at Bridgestone Arena. City officials are ready for another large crowd as the Predators and Penguins face off in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final! After an overwhelming response to the Broadway Smash party in downtown Nashville Saturday night, officials are making changes to accommodate more fans. With estimates of around 50,000 people in the streets of downtown Saturday night, officials underestimated the turnout. “It was too crowded and we know that. It’s a pleasant problem. You would always like to be, you know, estimated perfectly – but the only issue really was sidewalks got jammed and, you know, people were packed in. Some of that you want because that’s the spirit of the event and what’s going,” Butch Spyridon president of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. told News 2. A crowd lined up hours before the gates to the Broadway Smash opened. Security lines then kept the crowd backed up, grid-locking the sidewalks and causing a safety concern for some. “The original thought was to put the bike rack to keep the sidewalks moving and not let the crowd flow in, but the opposite happened. So we are making those adjustments for tomorrow night. It will be different,” Spyridon explained. He also says they plan to add more security and an additional video screen further down Broadway that will air the game. This would give the fans more room to spread out through downtown. “The Preds are back in it, the people are behind it and everybody wants to be part of history in the making. You know our goal in the beginning was let’s bring Nashville into this. The whole city needs to enjoy this, not just the 17,000 that can get in the building. The Preds feel like that, the mayor feels like that, we certainly do and unfortunately there’s going to be some growing pains. Unfortunately, this is the first time we’ve done this, but hopefully it won’t be the last time that we are doing this.” Spyridon says he’s meeting with police, fire and OEM officials at 9:00 a.m. to come up with the final details. The downtown party starts at 1:00 p.m. and will feature Rodney Atkins, Kip Moore and Brett Young.

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