You found the perfect Nashville location.
Great.
Now where are you putting the grip truck, camera van, motorhome, catering, client cars and 25 crew members?
Production parking isn't the most glamorous part of location scouting, but it can make or break a shoot. The good news is that parking a production in Nashville can be considerably easier than in many larger production markets — particularly once you get outside the downtown core.
The trick is knowing what kind of Nashville you're shooting in.
Parking a commercial on Lower Broadway is a very different exercise from parking a lifestyle shoot at a house in Inglewood.
Here's what producers should know.
Downtown Nashville: Plan Your Parking Early
If you're shooting downtown, parking should be part of your location scout from day one.
Downtown Nashville, SoBro and the Gulch fall within Metro's Central Parking District, where on-street parking regulations are enforced 24 hours a day.
That means we wouldn't recommend arriving on the morning of the shoot and hoping to find a few convenient curb spaces for production vehicles.
For commercial shoots, the better approach is to determine exactly what needs to be close to set and address those vehicles as part of the permitting and parking plan.
The Nashville Department of Transportation maintains current information on downtown parking, rates and regulations.
You Can Reserve On-Street Parking for Production
If your Nashville shoot requires public street parking for production vehicles, parking can be addressed through the film permitting process.
Metro's film permit application asks productions to identify parking requirements, meter numbers and the types of vehicles being used — including things like RVs, grip trucks and prop vehicles.
That's helpful because it allows you to build the curb space you actually need into the production plan rather than fighting for it on the morning of the shoot.
For a downtown commercial, we'd typically identify the priority vehicles first:
Grip + electric. Camera. Motorhome. Wardrobe. Catering. Key production vehicle.
Those are the vehicles that may genuinely need to be at or near set.
Everyone else doesn't necessarily need a front-row seat.
What Does Production Parking Cost?
The cost depends on exactly where and how you're parking.
Metro's film permitting materials currently list reserved paid parking spaces at $21 per space, per day, with at least three business days' notice required for the request.
There may also be additional right-of-way fees depending on how your production is using the street.
If you need to use a loading zone beyond its normal allotted time, NDOT's current fee schedule lists a $15 per day, per location, per vehicle permit fee.
And if your parking plan starts turning into lane closures, sidewalk impacts or street closures, you're moving into additional right-of-way permits and costs.
The Nashville Department of Transportation Permit Office maintains current permit requirements and fees.
For a larger downtown production, we'd put a specific parking line in the location budget rather than treating it as an afterthought.
Downtown: Separate Essential Vehicles From Crew Parking
One of the easiest ways to make downtown production parking more manageable is to stop trying to park everybody next to set.
Your 5-ton probably needs to be close.
Your client's rental car probably doesn't.
For larger productions, it can make sense to reserve or permit curb space for essential production vehicles while putting general crew and client parking into a nearby garage or surface lot.
Metro itself recommends garages or surface lots for longer-term downtown parking rather than relying on metered spaces.
This also keeps your production footprint cleaner and reduces the amount of valuable curb space you're trying to control.
In other words:
Park the production near set. Park the people somewhere else.
Lower Broadway Is Its Own Animal
If you're shooting around Lower Broadway, give parking even more attention.
Broadway combines heavy pedestrian traffic, tourism, deliveries, rideshare activity, entertainment venues and limited curb space.
The shot may be simple.
The logistics around the shot may not be.
For a Broadway production, we'd scout the camera position, equipment staging, production parking and basecamp together.
If you need a motorhome, larger grip package or significant holding, it may make more sense to base those elements slightly away from Broadway and keep only essential vehicles close to the shooting location.
We've broken down the broader logistics separately in our guide to Can You Film on Broadway in Nashville?
Neighborhood Shoots Can Be Much Easier
Now let's leave downtown.
If you're shooting a house in East Nashville, Inglewood, Donelson, Sylvan Park or another residential neighborhood, parking can be considerably easier.
Many Nashville neighborhoods have driveways, wider residential streets and private-property options that simply don't exist downtown.
A private home may also have a driveway or rear parking area that can accommodate some production vehicles.
Larger properties outside the urban core may have enough land to park almost the entire production on-site.
That can be a huge advantage.
But easier doesn't mean unlimited.
Residential Streets Still Need a Parking Plan
The biggest challenge with neighborhood shoots is usually less about finding a parking space and more about preventing the production from taking over the block.
Twenty crew members arriving individually can fill a residential street very quickly.
That's not a great way to meet the neighbors.
For a larger shoot, consider consolidating crew parking elsewhere and shuttling people to set, particularly if the location sits on a narrow street or has limited curb space.
Some Nashville streets also participate in residential parking programs, so you should never assume every open curb is automatically available for production use.
NDOT maintains information about Nashville's Residential Parking Permit Program.
When scouting a residential location, look at the entire block — not just the house.
Private Parking Is Your Friend
One of the easiest ways to simplify Nashville production parking is to find a location with private parking already attached.
That might mean:
A house with a large driveway
A commercial property with its own lot
A church or school with a parking area
A farm with room for crew vehicles
A warehouse with a loading area
A neighboring business with a lot available to rent
A larger private property where vehicles can be hidden from camera
If the creative works and the property can support the production footprint, private parking can eliminate a significant amount of permitting and logistical complexity.
This is one of the reasons we look beyond the hero image when scouting.
A slightly less perfect house with room for 20 cars may ultimately be a much better production location than the perfect house with nowhere to put anyone.
Rural Nashville Is Where Parking Gets Easy
Once you start moving outside Nashville's denser neighborhoods, parking can become one of the major advantages of shooting in Middle Tennessee.
Farms, estates, horse properties and larger private homes may have acreage, barns, gravel lots, long driveways or open areas that can support production vehicles on-site.
Instead of splitting basecamp, crew parking and set across several different places, you may be able to keep almost everything together.
For larger commercial productions, that's incredibly valuable.
A rural property that gives you:
the location + basecamp + crew parking + truck parking + holding
can save time, money and quite a few morning phone calls.
Just make sure the ground can actually support the vehicles.
A beautiful field is not automatically a parking lot — particularly after three days of Tennessee rain.
Commercial Locations Can Be Somewhere in the Middle
Restaurants, warehouses, offices and other commercial properties vary enormously.
Some come with large private lots.
Others share parking with neighboring businesses.
Some have loading docks.
Some have approximately three parking spaces and a dream.
When scouting a commercial location, confirm:
How many spaces belong to the property? Are they exclusive? Can production reserve them? Are neighboring businesses operating during the shoot? Is there room for trucks to load and unload? Can vehicles remain overnight?
Never assume the parking lot you see in a scout photo actually belongs to the location you're renting.
Think About Basecamp Separately
For larger shoots, the best parking solution may not be at the hero location at all.
You might find a nearby church, commercial lot, vacant property or other private parking area that can serve as crew parking or basecamp.
From there, crew can walk or shuttle to set while only essential production vehicles remain at the location.
This is particularly useful when shooting in dense neighborhoods or downtown.
It can also make the location owner much happier.
Forty people arriving at their house feels very different from six production vehicles arriving at their house.
Don't Forget About Vehicle Size
A parking space is not necessarily a production parking space.
When scouting, tell your location manager or scout what you're actually bringing.
There's a major difference between:
Cargo van. Sprinter. 15-passenger van. Motorhome. Cube truck. 3-ton. 5-ton. Camera car. Trailer.
A street that comfortably handles a few passenger vehicles may not work for a large truck.
Also consider turning radius, low branches, overhead wires, steep driveways and whether a vehicle can get back out once it's loaded.
These are considerably more fun to discover during the scout than at 6:15 AM on the shoot day.
The Easy Part About Parking in Nashville
Here's the good news.
Once you move away from the densest downtown areas, Nashville can be very production-friendly when it comes to parking.
Residential properties often have driveways.
Commercial properties may have private lots.
And rural properties can offer enough land to keep the entire production together.
Compared with markets where every truck requires a carefully negotiated curb space, Nashville gives productions much more flexibility.
The key is choosing locations with the production footprint in mind.
The Challenging Part
Downtown is where you'll need to be more strategic.
Paid parking, limited curb space, loading zones, pedestrian traffic, events and other downtown activity mean you should build parking into your permit and budget early.
Residential neighborhoods present a different challenge: being a good neighbor.
You may technically be able to fit 30 cars along a street.
That doesn't necessarily mean you should.
And on rural properties, access and ground conditions matter just as much as available acreage.
Every location has a parking solution.
The goal is figuring it out before shoot day.
The Short Version
If you're shooting downtown Nashville, plan production parking early. Reserve or permit the curb space your essential production vehicles need and use garages, surface lots or a separate basecamp for general crew parking.
If you're shooting in a residential neighborhood, parking is often easier, but keep the footprint contained. Use driveways and private parking where possible and consider consolidating crew parking for larger shoots.
If you're shooting on a farm, estate or larger private property, you may be able to park most or all of the production on-site — one of the major logistical advantages of shooting outside central Nashville.
And wherever you're shooting:
Scout the parking when you scout the location.
Because finding somewhere for the camera is only half the job.
Need Help With Nashville Location Logistics?
Nashville Location Company provides location scouting, sourcing, vetting, location management and permitting support for commercial photography, advertising, branded content, film and motion productions throughout Nashville and Middle Tennessee.
When we scout a location, we're not just looking at what goes in front of the camera.
We're looking at where the grip truck goes, where the crew parks, where basecamp lives and whether the production can actually function there.
Send us your creative brief, shoot dates and production footprint and we'll help find a location that works on camera — and behind it.