CMA officials were nervous about this year’s festival happening in a deep recession, but — like many country songs — there’s a happy ending.

We found out that the four-day passes — mostly purchased by out-of-towners — did, in fact, take a hit. They were down 3.6 percent from last year.

But the single-day tickets to the LP Field actually went up! Those sales increased by 19% percent from last year, and the CMA thinks local folks bought ‘em. And that means a total net increase over last year of more than 7%.

“I have to say, we were happy,” said Tammy Genovese, the CEO of the CMA.

“We were going into this event saying we were going to be flat and we thought flat was up. But tonight, we’ve all sat down and looked at the numbers and we are thrilled to say we are up about 7.2 percent over last year.”

Now a lot of people think Nashvillians aren’t really involved with the CMA fest, but Genovese says, “We feel that this is totally about our Nashvillians owning this event and becoming a part of it.”

Totally average daily attendance for all areas of the festival jumped from 52,000 to 56,000.