A week after Chip Baker announced his retirement as executive director of the Riverbend Festival, longtime director of marketing and sponsorships Mickey McCamish has been named his replacement.
During Friends of the Festival's regularly scheduled board meeting Tuesday, board President Mary Kilbride said it was also decided to partner with the staff at Songbirds Guitar Museum under the direction of President Johnny Smith to collaborate in booking the entertainment for the festival and to help with production and marketing.
In July, Baker told the board he would be leaving.
"We have been discussing this for the last 90 days and asking what would be the future of Riverbend 2020, and looking at 2019 and saying, 'What do we want to do differently?'" Kilbride said.
The festival made wholesale changes last year, including cutting the event from nine days to four, doubling the ticket price and partnering with AC Entertainment in Knoxville, which helped book the four headlining acts - Weezer, Keith Urban, Macklemore and Lionel Richie.
Smith said it was his hope and understanding that his group would be involved in booking the acts "from top to bottom."
Kilbride said Songbirds was chosen based on "their reputation, their associations around town, their experiences and their successes and we felt like that [partnering with them] would really up our game."
Board member Thomas Lee added that "their experience booking musical entertainment and knowing what is contemporary, and their knowledge of the experience and what it takes to help up the level of the experience for the patrons at the festival," was also key in making the decision.
Smith said he has been attending the festival "since the very beginning almost" 38 years ago and that he appreciates how much it has meant to the community. A drummer himself, Smith said playing on the iconic main Coke Stage at Riverbend was a goal of his growing up.
"I had three dreams or goals - to play the Ryman, to play the Grand Ol' Opry and to play on the Coke Stage at Riverbend, and fortunately I was able to accomplish all three. I know how important this festival is this community."
Smith, McCamish, Kilbride and Lee all acknowledge that the festival's main stage, which sits on a barge on the Tennessee River with the stage nearly 40 feet in the air, might have outlived its usefulness. All said one of the first things that will take place in the next few days is a site visit and an evaluation to see what changes need to be made.
The barge could go away, for example.
"I will go on record as saying I would like to see the [main] stage be on land," Smith said.
One proposal is for stages to be set up closer to the Olgiati Bridge on one end and the Market Street Bridge on the other.
McCamish said, "We will evaluate everything."
Kilbride said several mistakes were made last year that helped lead to the festival losing more than $1 million. Among those missteps, according to Kilbride, was "walking away from our corporate sponsors. It was a mistake."
For many years, Riverbend sold pins and later wristbands to businesses at discounted rates, and in most cases those businesses then gave or sold them to their employees at the lower rates. The practice both ensured higher sales and more people attending the event, Kilbride said.
The practice will return, she said.
Lee said that for the two years leading up to 2019, the festival sold between 40,000 and 45,000 wristbands. Those numbers dropped by nearly half last year.
Another error was charging a kid's admission fee, Kilbride said.
"We won't do that again," she said.
Lee said the admission price, which went from about $35 to about $70 with fees and taxes last year for early purchases and from almost $45 to $90 last year for later purchases, will drop to around $50 for early purchases.
He added that he felt that last year's lineup, while more in line with some other festivals, was "too disparate," adding that trying to appeal to too broad an audience, something Riverbend has tried to do since coming online in 1982, can backfire.
Smith said he'd like to look at getting away from what has been a traditionally top-heavy lineup with a big name, and also expensive, headliner and spreading the talent and the budget around more evenly.
"I'd like to see it where people want to see every act on the schedule," he said.
Another area where the festival needs to improve, all agreed, is in marketing and the use of social media as a marketing tool.
"This event is largely local," Lee said. "We know that about 95 percent of our patrons come from here, but we spent quite a lot of money on out-of-town advertising. We don't want to exclude Atlanta or Nashville, but the focus needs to be local."
Which could perhaps be the biggest challenge. Sponsorships through corporate support and local vendors have been key to the festival's past successes, providing a solid source of revenue, but having Riverfront Parkway lined with booths representing local businesses gives the event a carnival or county fair feeling, they acknowledge.
"We need to tone that down," Lee said.
"We want the experience to be about the music," Smith said.
The next Riverbend will take place May 27-30, 2020.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.