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Tweaking elements of Riverbend often has unexpected consequences

By Casey Phillips June 18, 2016 8 min read

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Riverbend ripples: Tweaking elements of the festival often has unexpected consequences

A large LED screen was installed this year over Riverbend's Coca-Cola Stage in the hopes of making it easier for attendees to see the early headliners, who perform at a time when sunlight would have overpowered the projection system used last year by the festival.

Thanks to ongoing construction of The Edwin, a 90-room boutique hotel on Walnut Street, the Riverbend's Unum Stage was forced to move forward by 40 feet —

Jonathan Steingard, the lead singer of Christian pop/punk band Hawk Nelson, stands on the newly installed barricade at the Bud Light Stage during the band's performance on Tuesday. The barricade was added this year to prevent overcrowding injuring those standing at the foot of the stage.

People line up in front of a barricade that was placed this year in front of the Bud Light Stage after huge crowds for Florida Georgia Line and Sam Hunt at previous Riverbend's created a crush at the front of the stage.

When viewed in the short term, Riverbend can seem like a mostly static entity, one that’s slow to change and largely content to remain within the mold that has allowed it to endure for 35 years.

But like a glacier in perpetual foot-by-foot advance, the festival has undergone many changes throughout its existence.

Sometimes the changes are small, such as relocating a food truck to a more highly trafficked area. Other shifts are game-changing, such as the switch in 2014 to using scannable wristbands for admittance after decades of selling collectible plastic pins.

“You have to constantly tweak the system, based on what people want to hear, based on your physical site limitations and on keeping it fresh,” says Friends of the Festival Executive Director Chip Baker. “Sometimes people see the changes and sometimes they don’t, but it’s never the same year after year.”

With an event of Riverbend’s size and with as many moving parts, however, changing anything can result in a ripple effect of unanticipated consequences.