Riverboats will be the main reason people make their way to the Riverfront Oct. 15-19 for Tall Stacks 2003. But this time, there'll be more music competing with the boat whistles. It's the first year for the Tall Stacks Music, Arts & Heritage Festival, an event that organizers hope can do for Cincinnati what the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has done for the Big Easy.

Mike Smith, who earned his stripes managing Riverbend with the Nederlander organization, is behind the festival as the head of Music and Event Management Inc. (MEMI), a new venture by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

He envisions a more dynamic Tall Stacks, one that will draw young music fans and baby boomers and their kids. Spinning off Cincinnati's history as a musical river town, Mr. Smith plans a festival featuring national, regional and local acts, ranging from blues and heartland rock to Dixieland and bluegrass.

The timing is right, as roots music spreads beyond the hard-core faithful to young jam-band crowds and the massive mainstream on the heals of the soundtrack from the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? As a result, Mr. Smith and Tall Stacks are in a unique position to create an event that will have a distinctly local feel and a broad national appeal.