Jazz Fest ‘cubes’ with performance times, stages released
Published 5:00 pm Wednesday, March 23, 2016
- FILE - In this Aug. 8, 2013, file photo, Blues music legend B.B. King performs on Frampton’s Guitar Circus 2013 Tour at Pier Six Pavilion, in Baltimore. The Robert Cray Band with guest guitarists Sonny Landreth and Roy Gaines will offer a special tribute to the late blues legend at the 2016 Playboy Jazz Festival. The Los Angeles Philharmonic announced the lineup Tuesday, March 1, 2016, for the 38th annual Playboy festival, scheduled for the weekend of June 11-12 at the Hollywood Bowl. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP, File)
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — It’s one month and counting before the 2016 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival returns to the Fairgrounds Race Course.
Organizers Tuesday released the coveted “cubes,” which show performance times and stages for this year’s artists, including Stevie Wonder, Pearl Jam, Snoop Dogg, Nick Jonas, J. Cole, Bonnie Raitt and Beck.
Festival producer Quint Davis said Tuesday was the day that everything comes together and fits for festival-goers.
“What you see is a big jumble of names, up until today,” Davis said during a press conference at the Fair Grounds. “You have no idea of how they go together and who’s where. You don’t know that there will be Big Freedia, Rebirth Brass Band and Snoop Dogg. You don’t know that Walter (Washington) will be playing with the Isley Brothers and Maze.
“You don’t know not to miss Kermit Ruffin’s tribute to Louis Armstrong or that Tab Benoit brings in Nathaniel Rateliff and then Van Morrison. But that’s what happened here today for us. Now you will see the festival. How these acts fit together and how these acts combine, this is what the show is.”
In addition, festival producers announced a few changes in hopes of avoiding a repeat of last year’s Elton John-induced gridlock at the Acura Stage, the event’s largest.
In 2016, no chairs, blankets or tarps will be permitted anywhere on the dirt track that encircles the Fair Grounds infield. The Advocate reports (http://bit.ly/1Ml9Ibq) the “standing room only” areas in front of the three main stages — Acura, Congo Square and Gentilly — also have been expanded.
And, large bleachers have been added to the back of the Acura Stage field and the side of the Congo Square field. Unlike other elevated seating areas closer to the stages that are accessible only to purchasers of premium ticket packages, the new bleachers will be open to all Jazz Fest attendees on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The bleachers will extend from the grassy infield, over the drainage ditch that borders the field, to about halfway across the dirt track. The outer section of the dirt track will remain open for pedestrian traffic. The new measures are designed to “make sure that we leave the highway open and everybody can get to every stage at any time,” Davis said.
Being able to “flow” from one stage to another, sampling multiple acts that are performing simultaneously, is essential to the Jazz Fest experience, he said. The new bleachers and the ban on tarps, chairs and blankets on the track “will help maintain our flow.”
Tens of thousands of people crammed the Acura Stage field last year to hear John, one of the most popular artists Jazz Fest has ever booked. With the infield packed, fans set up camp on the dirt track. Well before John arrived onstage, the track was impassable. Overflow crowds at the Congo Square Stage also have spilled onto the dirt track, making for a difficult passage there as well.
The festival, presented by Shell, runs April 22-24 and again April 28-May 1.
