Riverbend Festival

What is the future of the Riverbend Festival after they have made dramatic cuts to survive 2020.

Friends of the festival, recently reduced their staff and liquidated their assets in hopes of a future comeback.

Executive director mickey mccamish explains to news 12's winston reed what changes are expected for events going forward.

In our top local story.

"this photo here is the iconc riverbend."

Since 2011, friends of the festival executive director mickey mccamish has witnessed the riverbend fesitval turn out to be a success.

"the mission of riverbend was to bring people into the downtown area.

That was it's mission."

This year, the festival has been canceled, 7 employees were let go, and venue assets like stages were liquidated.

"historically riverbend has funded itself with proceeds from one riverbend to the next.

Sell a wrist band.

Sell a concession."

Mccamish says these budget cuts were made in order to give the riverbend festival a chance to survive in the future.

"it can be much fewer stages and it could be a lot less people."

Standup: mccamish's goal is to host the next riverbend festival by the second half of 2021.

When asked about ticket sales, he said the prices will be determined based on the artist and not the capacity of the event reporting in chattanooga winston reed news 12 now.