RiverFest closed on a wet note when the predicted Saturday rains came as the evening’s entertainment began to kick off on both festival stages.

Rain threatened the 28th festival all day, bringing some showers during the afternoon, followed by an intermittent drizzle in the late afternoon and evening, when the heavy showers appeared.

The rain thinned the crowd but did not prevent headliner Craig Wayne Boyd from taking the stage about 10 p.m. and performing.

“The threat of rain held some of the people off just a little early Friday, but they eventually came,” Vicksburg Main Street executive director Kim Hopkins said.

RiverFest president Christy Pecanty said an estimated 3,000 people attended the Friday performances, which were headlined by the soul quintet Silk.

Saturday began cloudy, but Hopkins and Pecanty said the threatening skies didn’t keep people away.

“The (DiamondJacks Rhythm Run) was very good. People brought their umbrellas, and when it started raining, they opened them up and continued on,” Hopkins said.

Pecanty said some food vendors did not come to the festival, and people were calling festival organizers to see if RiverFest was still on.

“I told them, ‘We’re here and it’s still going on, c’mon down,’” she said.

A light drizzle was falling on festivalgoers as Slap Happy opened its set at 6 p.m. on the festival’s South Stage, drawing an audience that steadily grew during the band’s performance.

At the North Stage, country music came from the speakers as technicians did sound checks.

Getting comfortable and watching the tests were Karen Triplett of Vicksburg and her friend Linda Turner of Oklahoma City, who by 6:30 p.m. had their canvas chairs set up only a few feet away from the North Stage on China Street to get a good view of Saturday’s headliner, Craig Wayne Boyd.

“I came here to visit my friend Karen,” Turner, a Boyd fan, said. “Craig Wayne Boyd is just icing on the cake.”

The visit to RiverFest was the first for both women.

“I moved here last year from Nashville,” Triplett said. “I didn’t even know about this. We’ve been here all day, and it’s been wonderful.”

Several yards from Triplett and Turner, Cindy Blais of Dallas and her friends, Tracey Gravely and Shay Caffey from Longview, Texas, were sitting on a bleacher at the eastern end of the intersection of China and Washington Street.

Blais and Gravely are regulars to RiverFest. Caffey’s a first-timer. “They invited me this year,” she said.

“We like to come here and shop and go to RiverFest,” Blais said. “This is our girls’ weekend. We like the shopping, I like the history, and the people in Vicksburg are so polite; they’re wonderful.”

“We’ve been walking all over town,” Caffey said. “We shopped and ate, and ate some more. It’s been wonderful.”

On the south end of Washington Street, a woman who would only identify herself as Susan from Louisiana, was at RiverFest for the first time with her family.

“I heard you were having something, so I wanted to come see what it was,” she said. “This is very nice. I like Mississippi and I like this area.”

It was also the first time for Edwards residents Emily Germany, her husband Boyd and their sons Nobile and Hayes.

“My father, Ricky Nobile, is a cartoonist and he was here today and we came to support him,” she said. “We’ve been enjoying it. Our sons have been having a good time with the rides and the water games.”

“We just having a good time and enjoying ourselves,” Boyd said.