Where is local entertainment headed?

I was a guest on WGOW the other day with Jim Reynolds and Bill Lockhart (regular host Jeff Styles was recovering from a broken leg, in case you haven’t heard, and yes there was a skateboard involved).

We spent a good deal of time trying to look into the future of Chattanooga’s entertainment scene in 10 or 20 years. No one knows for sure, but it is easy to see the current level of momentum and predict that things will certainly be different.

Things have already changed. For most of my adult life, and even during the renaissance begun by the Tennessee Aquarium, things moved at a relatively even, and sometimes slow pace.

Things like Nightfall took awhile to take hold, and we’ve had plenty of citywide events, restaurants, bars, etc. come and go over the last three decades. Not so much in the last five or six years.

Even with the economic slowdown, we’ve seen a lot of growth, and the big thing is we’ve become a destination for people who want things to do at night. Entertainment for adults, which is different than adult entertainment, by the way.

The influx of new people doesn’t know about our past, and they don’t care. They focus instead on the future and what they’d like to see happen.

One of the side effects of all that growth is that things are getting built and therefore taking up space. Space for things like Riverbend, which means it could be looking for a new venue in the future. Does it go out to the Tennessee Riverpark off Amnicola Highway, or does it somehow remodel Barry Courter itself and make use of Finley Stadium and First Tennessee Pavilion?

Does someone come in and program those facilities for concerts on a regular basis?

It’s hardly a new idea, and it seems to come up about every 18 months or so. Will the Chattanooga Lookouts give up that prime location on Hawk Hill for a new spot that doesn’t bake fans under the sun during games?

Could the new location be the Southside/St. Elmo area? Could we also get an amphitheater for outdoor music concerts in that area?

So far, almost all of the growth in the entertainment scene has been centered around downtown.

Will Camp Jordan finally realize its potential? Will the Ooltewah/Collegedale area continue to become the next big thing? Things are definitely happening there, but I don’t see a lot of the downtown folks heading up there much.

One thing that keeps rattling around in my head is a comment from a developer of one of the new downtown hotels who said his company was building it not for the current demand but for future demand. More change is coming.