Hatch Show Print

Inside a downtown complex that houses the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and the shiny 23-story Omni Hotel, Nashville's famous letterpress company, Hatch Show Print, has found a new home. Established in 1879, Hatch Show Print has created show posters for the likes of Elvis, Hank Williams, Duke Ellington, and Johnny Cash. Its straightforward and graphically bold signs still advertise every performance at the Ryman Auditorium. Visitors can watch designers work as they arrange hand-carved woodblocks or operate the antique letterpress machines that turn out the posters. In the gift shop next to Hatch's workroom, it's a challenge to choose just one image from the colorful wall of posters for sale.