Just nine months after opening to much fanfare, Times Square's Opry City Stage has closed its doors. According to the New York Post, 99 employees were given the news of the venue's demise last Thursday (Sept. 27).

"As we have shared over the past several months, our Opry City Stage venue has taken longer to ramp up its operations than we initially anticipated and has unfortunately underperformed our revenue expectations this year," says Ryman Hospitality CEO Colin Reed in a statement. "We have decided that suspending operations at Opry City Stage while we evaluate the venue’s ground floor experience and operations is the appropriate course of action."

The Opry City Stage website also listed this message regarding the current situation, saying, "Opry City Stage is temporarily paused for intermission as we prep for our next big thing! Please stay tuned for future announcements."

Plans for the venue were announced in 2016, and Luke Bryan was the first musical act to play the 28,000 square foot theme restaurant at 1604 Broadway during a performance on Good Morning America last December. Just last month, Carly Pearce and Brett Young were on hand at the venue to tape a Front & Center special.

Ashley Campbell also played the Opry City Stage early this year and reflected on the importance of the venue for her.

“I grew up in musical theater and I always had this dream of seeing my name up on the marquee in Times Square, and when I looked up that night, I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Campbell told People magazine in an interview in erly 2018. “The Opry City Stage is a venue that has such a cool way of merging the music of yesteryear with the music of tomorrow. It was such an accomplishment for me to play there and a moment I will never forget."

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