Moon River part of city’s progression

The lineup for the first Moon River Music Festival was announced on Tuesday morning and it’s a good one. Of course, as I’ve said for many years, if your favorite band or artist is on the bill, it’s a good lineup.

As a fan of several of the acts on the bill, including the Avett Brothers and Mavis Staples, it’s a good lineup. Several things about the festival coming here Sept. 8-9 are noteworthy to me. First, it will be at Coolidge Park and it will be gated and ticketed.

We’ve had large events there such as 4 Bridges Arts Festival and Pops on the River, but nothing like this. Which makes a lot of people wonder if the space can handle it. Festival organizers AC Entertainment spent a good deal of time studying spaces all over the state before deciding on Coolidge Park, so they think they have a good plan.

Organizers hope people will bike, walk, paddleboard, kayak or canoe to the site as parking on that side of the river will be stressed. The positive is that being able to walk across the bridges or paddle across the river will give the event a different vibe than most other festivals.

Second, co-founder Drew Holcomb said he expects most of the ticket buyers to come from outside of Chattanooga as they did when the event was held in Memphis, where it began in 2014. The fact that the city is attracting out-of-town visitors in great numbers, and that it can support multiple music events on the Barry Courter same night or in the same year, I think, in many ways, are the biggest changes we’ve seen in recent years.

And, except for when guys like me bring it up, no one is really surprised anymore.

› The eighth Road to Nightfall finals are Saturday night at The Signal and it promises to be a good night for fans of local music.

The five finalists, who each outdid five other bands over five nights of performing, are Courtney Holder & Hive Theory, Lenox Hills, The Foothills, SunSap and Caney Creek Company.

Saturday night’s winner gets some cash, some free studio recording time and the chance to headline one of the Friday night shows during the Nightfall series this summer. But, what is also cool about the RTN series is that more bands are exposed to more fans. In all, 150 musicians and 30 bands participated.

The five preliminary rounds were at Granfalloon, but the finals are at The Signal. The show starts at 8 p.m. and admission is $10.