Right on cue, the storm clouds parted, the sun broke through and hickory smoke and hip-hop music started rising from the lawn at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center on Martin Luther King Boulevard.
Rain had organizers worried for Friday night's IndepenDANCE Day Street Party - the combined effort of Chattanooga Presents and the Bessie Smith Cultural Center - but people still headed downtown to dance, party together and take in the holiday weekend's summer sounds.
Rodney McCullough, Vonnie Stone, Sam McCullough and Bella Eugene planned to attend whatever the weather did.
"We have umbrellas with us," Rodney McCullough laughed. "We're going to stay here a while and we'll move down there [Nightfall] a little later."
Beside them, Clearwater, Fla., resident Deirdre Dillow and her children, Aidan and Ronan, were visiting for the week and we glad the weather let up Friday after hearing about the rained out Strut in June.
Dillow lived in Chattanooga in the early 1990s, but she marvels at the changes the city has undergone, she said.
The idea of the joint event was to give vendors and partiers who got rained out during Riverbend's Bessie Smith Strut last month a second chance, according to president of the cultural center Dionne Jennings.
"All week long it was raining and we had about 10 vendors set up, and this morning we had about six call and cancel on us," Jennings said.
With gobs of green and red on the weather radar and continuing rain through the early part of the day on Friday, Sound Advice had to cancel because they couldn't set up their equipment in the rain. The DJ already scheduled to provide music for the dancers kept the beat going into the evening, Jennings said.
Vendor Robert Penn said he was glad to get a second shot for his business, Pursenality.
He admitted Friday's fest didn't quite make up the loss, "but it's good to get our business name out there."
As she served up some smoky ribs to customers lined up 12 deep, Ms. Tee's BBQ & More owner Tonia Boyd agreed Friday's event didn't generate as much business as the Strut would have.
"But it's going pretty good. I'm satisfied," Boyd said.
Local artists Rondell Crier and Anna Carll said the rain dampened efforts all week to get the AT&T building mural started, but Crier did get most of the 40,000-square-foot building exterior washed and primed Friday.
As Nightfall's opening act Xsklusive reached the middle of their set, Chattanooga Presents owner Carla Pritchard said that despite the rain the crowd was about average - 2,500 to 3,000 - already before the main act, Tinsley Ellis.
"Of course it effects our crowd when people are afraid it's going to rain, but we're grateful that it didn't rain," Pritchard said.
Pritchard and Jennings say they might team up again in August for a back-to-school event.
"We think it's a great new tradition to start at least once a season," Pritchard said.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or twitter.com/BenBenton or www.facebook.com/ben.benton1 or 423-757-6569.