CMA Fest Special Reveals Star-Studded Line-Up

The 2025 CMA Fest featured four straight days of the biggest names in country music playing live in Nashville.

The nation’s largest and longest-running country music festival brought an estimated 95,000 fans to Nashville June 5-8 according to the Country Music Association. And those fans got to see more than 300 performances.

But for country music fans who couldn’t make it to Music City, ABC is bringing the best of the Fest to network television. And now we know which acts made the cut to make it on the special.

Country singers Ashley McBryde and Cody Johnson will co-host a recap of CMA Fest that will air on ABC June 26.

This year marks the 22nd straight summer that CMA has brought the festival to national audiences with a televised special. Every year, the special highlights headline performances at Nissan Stadium and this year is no exception. But the special will also feature singers on other stages and downtown honky tonks that were part of CMA Fest.

CMA Fest Playlist Features 30 Performances

While the four-day CMA Fest featured more than 300 performances, the television audience will only get to see about ten-percent of the acts that took the stage.

Those are:

Trace Adkins singing “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”
Jason Aldean performing “Whiskey Drink”
Jason Aldean and Travis Tritt singing “It’s A Great Day to Be Alive”
Kelsea Ballerini performing “Baggage”
Dierks Bentley singing “She Hates Me”
Dierks Bentley and Zach Top performing both “Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)” and “Mountain Music”
Brooks & Dunn and Lainey Wilson singing “Play Something Country”
Brooks & Dunn and Marcus King performing “Rock My World (Little Country Girl)”
Luke Bryan closing out the Fest with “A Country Song Came On”
Jordan Davis singing “Bar None”
Riley Green performing “Worst Way”
Cody Johnson, one of the hosts of the special, singing “The Fall”
Cody Johnson and Carín León performing “She Hurts Like Tequila”
Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll (in a surprise performance) singing “Hard Fought Hallelujah”
Ella Langley performing “Weren’t for the Wind”
Ashley McBryde, who hosts the ABC special, singing “Rattlesnake Preacher”
Parker McCollum performing “What Kinda Man”
Scotty McCreery singing “Five More Minutes”
Megan Moroney performing “Am I Okay?”
Rascal Flatts singing “Life Is a Highway”
Rascal Flatts and Carly Pearce performing “My Wish”
The Red Clay Strays singing “No One Else Like Me”
Darius Rucker performing “Wagon Wheel”
Dylan Scott singing “Country Till I Die”
Shaboozey and Jelly Roll (in another surprise performance) singing “Amen”
Blake Shelton performing “Stay Country or Die Tryin'”
Blake Shelton and Trace Adkins (in a surprise performance) singing “Hillbilly Bone”
Zach Top performing “I Never Lie”
Keith Urban singing “Straight Line”
Bailey Zimmerman and BigXthaPlug performing “All the Way”

How to Watch the CMA Fest 2025 Special

You can catch the CMA Fest Recap featuring the top performances on ABC on Thursday, June 26, 2025 at 8:00p.m. ET and streaming on Hulu the next day.