Poor weather Friday and Saturday couldn't dampen fan excitement as average daily attendance for the 2014 CMA Music Festival June 5-8 in Nashville topped 80,000 fans per day for the second year in a row. The event sold out a record 15 weeks in advance, helping to fuel attendance at the festival's various free stages, though sour weather quite likely dampened the overall turnout. "The advance sell-out speaks to the strength of the event with our fans," says CMA CEO Sarah Trahern. "The popularity of our artists and the entertainment value of this festival is what drove attendance and filled the streets of downtown Nashville."

But countries stars did more than just sing and sign at the CMA Music Festival in Nashville last week. Darius Rucker raised over $120,000 for St. Jude's Children's Research Hosptial with his fifth annual Darius And Friends benefit concert and celebrity golf tournament June 2nd. The annual Stars for Second Harvest benefit concert with Craig Wiseman and friends June 3rd, raised more than $142,000 for Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee. And finally last Saturday's City of Hope Celebrity Softball Game, featuring Florida Georgia Line, Sara Evans and Scotty McCreery playing on teams representing iHeartRadio and the game-winning Grand Ole Opry team, which raised $200,000-plus for City of Hope's cancer research.

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