Recreation of Taylor Swift’s Tour Bus for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Project: Exhibit of Taylor Swift’s tour bus

Location: Nashville, TN

Client: 1220 Exhibits and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

We were thrilled to have the opportunity to help create something for the latest addition to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (CMHoF) here in Nashville, TN. We were approached by an exhibit-making company, 1220 Exhibits to help print and install an exhibit they were hired to create. They created an entire interactive wing for the CMHoF that included a giant interactive station that looked like a replica of Taylor Swift’s tour bus from the outside. Inside the wooden structure are digital displays where museum patrons can pretend to go on a concert tour and record a hit record. 

To create the vinyl exterior for the tour bus we hired a professional photographer to take pictures of Ms. Swift’s actual tour bus from every angle. One of our graphic designers then meshed the pictures together in the exact measurements of the wooden structure 1220 created for the bus. Our designer also edited and perfected the pictures to remove anything like light flares and glare off of the metal and glass parts of the bus. After getting pictures of the actual bus perfected, we added the other layers of graphics over the first layer (this included the giant image of Ms. Swift,  her signature, and the swooping details on the sides of the bus). This helped keep every image crisp and stopped it from getting too pixelated when blown up. We printed everything on matte 3M IJ35C vinyl because it wouldn’t glare under the museum lights and it would be durable enough to take the wear of people walking by and touching the exhibit on a regular basis.

Our guys went up from Franklin to Nashville on a fairly regular basis for about four months to finish this project including meetings, proofing the art, drafts, edits, printing, and installation—but the actual installation of the bus only took about two and a half days. It was challenging because one side of the bus faces a bunch of windows and there is only about a foot and a half of space between the bus and the windows that our guys could use to bring in ladders and install a perfect, even wrap.

The bus was made even more realistic looking when 1220 exhibits added working lights where the bus would actually have lights, along the sides and in the back. In the end it turned out really well and we were thrilled to have helped with even a small part of this landmark in Music City.

Interested in talking about installations for exhibit spaces? Give us a call at 615-595-6564 to get a free quote and consultation on your project!