CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) During the 35th edition of the Riverbend Festival, weve been taking you back to the very first one in 1982. 08-23-1982 Riverbend Festival Barge Christening - YouTube The barge that held the first Riverbend Festival in Chattanooga is christened. 12. Also in 1981, after Five Nights, Lyndhurst provided a $26,000 grant that allowed a group of leaders, including Hetzler and Mayor Pat Rose, to attend Spoleto and fund some research seminars in Chattanooga that explored the idea of establishing a local festival. 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Chattanooga and the large music festival scene have changed quite a bit since the inaugural Riverbend Festival in 1982. "Carey just sat back and laughed, but then he turned around and wrote a check for $25,000," says Breland, professor emeritus from the Music Department at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Five Nights was held at the intersection of what is now M.L. Riverbend Festival, orRiverbend, named for the bend in the Tennessee River by locals, began in June of 1982 as a five-night festival in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Bessie Smith Strut, originally called the Bessie Smith Jazz Strut, on Ninth Street, now M.L. Children under the age of five can enjoy the festival for free as long as they are with a ticket holding adult. It has since evolved. Many of the restaurants and bars have live music in the evenings, which you can enjoy with a refreshing cocktail. Riverbend started in 1982 at Ross's Landing at a time when most of the buildings were boarded up, and few had reason to come to the riverfront. Riverbend Festival 1986 Setlists Jun 13 1986 Date Friday, June 13, 1986 - Sunday, June 22, 1986 Venue Ross's Landing, Chattanooga, TN, USA Report festival So far there are setlists of 14 gigs. The Beach Boys on Memorial Day Weekend, The Commodores in June & Rick Springfield on the Fourth of July weekend. Talk to News 12 anchors, reporters and meteorologists. Scribd is the world's largest social reading and publishing site. Saturday, July 30, 2022 Outlaw Music Festival 2022 featuring Willie Nelson, ZZ Top, Gov't Mule, Larkin Poe, and Particle Kid Doors Open: 4:00pm Show Time: 4:25pm Riverbend Music Center Artists Willie Nelson ZZ Top Gov't Mule Larkin Poe Particle Kid Important Health Update There Are No Health Entry Requirements For This Event. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit live at Riverbend Festival 2022. But the details of where, when and how the long-running festival actually got started depends on whom you ask. The Riverbend Festival, also called Riverbend, is a well-known annual music festival in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which was started in June 1982 as a five-night festival. Major local and national companies, such as Covista Communications, Unum, and Budweiser, sponsor other stages throughout the riverfront area. Individual nights can see some 80,000 people in attendance. We live, work and play right here in the Tennessee Valley. We dreamed of festivals such as Salzburg that made the city a tourist destination six weeks every summerand a financial bonanza like a second Christmas shopping season for all merchants. There will be several vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options on offer. Rather than admission .from 7162988 From The Archives: The First Riverbend Festival The very first Riverbend Festival in Chattanooga actually ran during late August of 1982 August 18, 2022 Collins Parker CHATTANOOGA. function evvntDiscoveryInit() { And also to get a very segregated city to mix in the process. And the most audacious part of the plan.. the Bessie Smith Jazz Strut on 9th Street (now MLK Blvd), was a huge success. Music festival in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States, International Festivals and Events Association. Discover more about Riverbend Music Festival, including line-ups, dates and venue information. Green Day. You can head to one of these if you need assistance or simply flag down a staff member. In a partnership with local audio retailer Listen Up, CDs and playback equipment were shipped in from Japan. celebrating 40 years of riverbend Festival. Greenlee moved KADE and KBCO to a state-of-the-art studio complex at 4801 Riverbend Road in East Boulder and then sold the stations to Noble Broadcasting in 1987. For Sid Hetzler, a former reporter, college professor and local business man, it's a pretty straight line from September 1980, when he visited Charleston, S.C., and attended the Spoleto Charleston Festival, until the first Riverbend. Here are the details before we explore that question again. Chattanooga is situated along the Georgia border in the southeast part of Tennessee. Paramore. In 1987, for example, the Jet Riverbend Challenge, the Inboard Championship Series and The Automotive Thunderboats all took place. First Aid tents will be located throughout the venue. Riverbend ignited civic pride, stimulated business and civic leaders to rethink downtown, and showcased the arts. Join us at Rosss Landing on June 2-4, 2023 and celebrate with us. Each has their own memories and interpretations of the series of events that led to the creation of an event heading into its 33rd year. I've sent out a few emails and maybe an editor will catch it for a quick human interest side bar. "dfpConfig": { [1] The festival was named for the bend in the Tennessee River on which Chattanooga was established. "Part of Bruce's genius was getting Walker involved," says Robbins. widget: true, [1] Going to this festival? Neighboring communities (starting in the north and going clockwise) Abenberg Location: Chattanooga, TN. Backpacks are prohibited, but you can carry a small bag or purse. They will be staffed with trained professionals and festival volunteers. Riverbend Festival, named for the bend in the Tennessee River by locals, began in June of 1982 as a five-night festival in Chattanooga to bring the community together. Three major highways, I-24, I-75, and I-59, intersect in the region. Over the years, the festival has grown from five nights to nine nights of its current run. The most important impact Riverbend makes is the same one that made it so special in 1982: Bringing people together from diverse backgrounds from around the country and the world to enjoy music in a special place that holds so much of Chattanoogas history. Now, no one seems to know what happened at Riverbend's beginning or care very much, my fellow organizers tell me. An interview with this talented band, if any of the original players remain, would be an interesting tie-in to the early days of the struggling festival and to its original ideas of downtown revitalization, not just of riverfront development for investors. This won us a $26,000 planning grant, larger than another foundation test grant for a Chamber of Commerce weekend downtown festival similar to past limited efforts by the Allied Arts organization. Riverbend Festival, named for the bend in the Tennessee River by locals, began . The Friends of the Festival Board of Directors met Monday and decided to put the community's largest festival first produced in 1982 on hold for another year. It has since evolved into three nights and is nationally known. There is a bend in the Tennessee River on which the City of Chattanooga was built, and the inspiration for the name of the event comes from this. The Friends of the Festival. Riverbend 2022 was awesome, Bojoh said. Attorney Hugh Moore, who joined the Riverbend board in 1983, called the music festival's creation "an organic progression.". Zedd. Crowds were so large for the concert, the fence was removed for safety reasons and the entire Riverbend site has been closed to vehicle traffic since. OFFICIAL WEBSITE. The Riverbend Festival, also called Riverbend, is a well-known annual music festival in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which was started in June 1982 as a five-night festival. Since Chattanooga is located along the Tennessee River, you can also enjoy outdoor activities like fishing and boating or go on scenic hikes. 8The Riverbend Festival, which was twice delayed and then restructured during the COVID-19 pandemic, will have to wait another year before returning June 2-5, 2022. Although being unfortunately canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, event organizers have pushed through to ensure that this beloved occasion occurs . At the time, festivals were a fairly new concept, so essentially the Chattanooga committee was creating something unusual. We had Jazz legend Count Basie, Soul hitmaker Roberta Flack, Bluegrass & traditional musician John Hartford and gospel singer Andre Couch. Protect yourself from the harsh sun and drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. Sunday, June 20, 1993 Ross's Landing, Chattanooga, TN Little Richard Add Setlist Monday, June 21, 1993 Ross's Landing, Chattanooga, TN Deanna Bogart Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}350318N 851934W / 35.055N 85.326W / 35.055; -85.326. category_id: null, Add this festival to your JamBase Calendar. 11. The Commodores came to Engel Stadium in June and Rick Springfield played over the Fourth of July. More than a hundred acts, both well-known and new, converge each year to perform various kinds of music, including classic rock, country, urban, and bluegrass, as well as jam bands, on three stages set alongside the Tennessee River. But the festival lit a spark for the community to gather, celebrate and imagine what the riverfront could become. The first ever Riverbend Festival took place in 1982 as a five-day event. [3] Admission was previously given to people who had collectible Riverbend Pins. Leadership Award Winner, Roger Pickett Selected As M.C. Thank you! Friends of The Festival Inc. Friends of the Festival - Inc. Revenue. Plus the Lyndhurst Foundation funded 3 pop-oriented concerts that summer to warm us up. Begun in 1982 the Riverbend Festival known locally as just Riverbend, is hugely popular. The line takes a turn from there, however, when the festival-in-waiting almost immediately deviated away from Hetzler's original idea of a highly artistic event spread over several weeks and featuring chamber and symphonic music, films and theater performances at various locations all over the city, a la Spoleto. The Riverbend Festival takes place in the downtown area at the scenic 21st Century Waterfront on Riverfront Parkway. Several groups in town were searching for ways to move the city forward both artistically and from a civic standpoint, he says, and, in many ways, Riverbend became that vehicle, providing an opportunity for diverging groups with equally divergent agendas to work together for the greater goal. The barge floats just off the shore against a large collection of amphitheater seats built into a hillside at the water's edge. Thomas Savage (19152003) was one of the intermountain West's best novelists. All rights reserved. "Five Nights was a test to see if people with different backgrounds would come downtown. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. "Music is my favorite form of communication; no matter the age, race, language- . Storey is largely credited with pushing Riverbend in the direction it eventually went, including the type of musical programming still going today. The first Riverbend was held at several downtown locations, including a chamber music concert at the Tivoli Theatre, a hot-air balloon launched from Vine Street and carrying a brass trio, and a children's film festival at the old Kirkman High School. Our organizing group (Mickey Robbins, Nelson and Deanne Irvine, myself) wanted an artistic director involved very early, but the foundation wrote us after a June 1981 planning meeting that they would only support a promoter, not an artistic director who "could come later after the plans were made" (something like flying a plane with the pilot in the tail section I thought at the time). Riverbend started in 1982 at Ross's Landing at a time when most of the buildings were boarded up, and few had reason to come to the riverfront. The southeast part of Tennessee of communication ; no matter the age of can. The direction it eventually went, including the type of musical programming going... 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