Happy Riverbending, Chattanooga.
It’s that time again, and while our annual nine-day Riverbend Festival at Ross’s Landing is expected to bring about 350,000 people to Chattanooga’s riverfront for fun and food and music, it also should raise all our local economic boats by more than $29 million, according to a University of Tennessee report released in late April.
But perhaps more importantly, it raises our fun and entertainment level – just as it has done every summer in Chattanooga since 1982 – more than 35 years.
The festival began on the Riverfront Friday night with Boz Scaggs and will roll through June 17, with nearly 100 more acts, including Ludacris, Old Dominion, Crowder, George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Morris Day & The Time with Cameo, Toby Keith and The Flaming Lips.
On Monday, the party will make a one-day move to historic Martin Luther King Boulevard in downtown Chattanooga for the Bessie Smith Strut – a jazz and blues celebration named for the Empress of the Blues who got her start singing on Chattanooga street corners when MLK Boulevard was Ninth Street, better known as “The Big Nine.”
If you don’t already have a wristband (which gets you in for shows every night) you can purchase one for $55 at any Riverbend gate. Day passes also are available. Admission to the strut is $10 – or $5 if you also have a Riverbend wristband.
Because we live in fast times, local authorities have beefed up an already abundant security system for the festival, and Chattanooga police say we’ll be as safe at the festival as we are at home.
For the first time, seven police cameras along the waterfront will be feeding information directly to the new police intelligence center, allowing officers to survey the crowd in real time.
Before we reach the waterfront, we’ll pass bag checks conducted by festival volunteers, private security workers and officers in uniform. We’ll also pass by several physical barricades at every entrance – put in place for Riverbend events two years ago to protect the festival’s perimeter to block speeding cars and trucks from the entrances.
Every summer millions of people hit the streets of downtown Chattanooga and our riverfront to enjoy music and food and each other in one of the most beautiful settings in America – the banks of the Tennessee River back-dropped by mountains and the Cumberland Plateau.
And next Saturday night, the finale will include one of the region’s best fireworks shows – a dazzle reflected by that beautiful river.
Come join the fun.