Broadway is not dangerous. It is, however, a specific environment with specific risks, and first-time visitors who treat it like a small-town festival rather than a dense urban entertainment district occasionally get caught off guard. Here is what actually happens to tourists on Broadway.
Phone and Wallet Theft
This is the most consistent real risk on Broadway. The combination of dense crowds, people distracted by music and alcohol, and easy escape routes through the honky-tonk maze creates textbook conditions for opportunistic theft. Your phone sitting on a bar top while you watch the band is the most common loss scenario. A wallet in a back pocket in a thick Friday night crowd is the second.
The fix is simple: phone in a front pocket, card in a front pocket, minimal cash out. If you are at a bar, keep your phone in your hand or on your person, not on the bar.
Drink Spiking
It happens. Nashville has documented incidents of drink spiking, primarily targeting tourists in the Broadway bars. The standard precautions apply: do not leave a drink unattended, do not accept drinks from strangers, and go with someone if you are concerned.
Overpriced Everything
This one is not a scam exactly, but visitors consistently report feeling deceived. Drinks on Broadway run $12 to $18 for basic cocktails at the large corporate bars. Some bars add an automatic service charge of 18 to 22 percent on top of listed prices. There is no cover charge to enter honky-tonks, but the experience of walking in expecting cheap beers and walking out having spent $200 is a genuine cultural shock for first-time visitors.
Tip: Robert’s Western World and a few of the smaller independent venues have much more reasonable prices than the celebrity-branded mega-bars.
Aggressive Hawkers
The pedal tavern operators, party bus promoters, and some bar staff position themselves on the sidewalk to direct foot traffic. They are not dangerous but they are persistent. A firm “no thank you” works. You do not owe anyone an explanation for not getting on a pedal tavern.
The Parking Garage Gap
The risk map changes sharply in the parking structures adjacent to the entertainment district, especially post-midnight. Car break-ins in downtown garages are common enough that the Metro Nashville police have issued public guidance about it. Leave nothing in your car. Nothing. A phone charger cable is enough to justify a smashed window.
Intoxicated Crowd Dynamics After Midnight
By 1 to 2 a.m. on weekend nights, the average intoxication level on Broadway rises substantially. Altercations happen. These rarely involve tourists who are minding their own business, but being in the wrong place when an argument between other patrons escalates is a real possibility. Give any heated situation wide berth.
The Police Presence
Metro Nashville Police has 30 dedicated officers patrolling the entertainment district on Thursday through Sunday nights. The police presence on Broadway is among the most visible in any American entertainment district of comparable size. This is a deterrent that functions. Officers are on foot, on horses, and in vehicles. Response times on the strip itself are fast.
What Does Not Happen on Broadway
Tourists are very rarely victims of robbery with violence on Broadway proper. Street crime of the kind common in some other entertainment districts (muggers, aggressive panhandlers) is low. The violence that does occur on Broadway is almost always alcohol-fueled altercations between other visitors, not crimes targeting tourists.
The risks on Broadway are real but specific. Protect your phone and wallet, do not leave drinks unattended, budget, and get a rideshare after midnight rather than walking through empty garages.
Sources:
- Metro Nashville Police Department: Entertainment district patrol deployment
- Nashville Banner: Security challenges on Nashville’s Lower Broadway (August 2024)
- District Attorney General Glenn R. Funk: Nashville Crime Rates 2025 (January 2026)
- District Attorney General Glenn R. Funk: Nashville Crime Rate Dipping to Historic Lows (October 2025)
- Nashville Todo: What tourists reported about walking Nashville at night (November 2025)