Is the New Orleans jazzfest fun?

BlochWave

I live about 3 or 4ish hours from NO by car, and there'll be some bands there my friends and I like, so would it be worth the time, effort, and money?

I am unfamiliar with "festivals"

bficky

I lived in NO for the first 18 years of my life, and I went a few times (and performed twice). I haven't been since Katrina, so I don't know if anything's changed, but I'd recommend it.

First off, the food is fanfrickingtastic. It sounds wrong, but the food is the main draw of Jazz Fest to a lot of people. Rows of booths selling every New Orleans delicacy possible. You could eat ten different things all with "crawfish" in the name. It can be damn hot in NO in May, so water is a must, and I'm sure it's way overpriced, so you may look into bringing it from home or sneaking it in.

There are many stages of varying sizes, and the music is constant. Gospel tents, reggae areas, rock stages, all the main genres are represented. For the bigger acts (Better Than Ezra and Dave Matthews Band, in my experience), you'll have to stake out an area to sit/stand at least an hour before the scheduled start to actually see anything (maybe earlier, depending on the band). For most of the smaller acts, you can just walk up and listen.

There is also a crafts area, full of jewelry, art, sculptures, etc. It's not my thing, but it's relatively interesting.

I just checked nojazzfest.com and it looks like the tickets went up a lot ($40/day) from what I remember, but the musical acts performing are pretty impressive, so I'd still recommend it. Hopefully many or all of your bands are performing on the same day.

BlochWave

Well the two primary draws for us would be OAR and Billy Joel, and they're performing at the same time

Although common sense in this case dictates we'd need to go camp out Billy Joel, 'cuz dammit IT'S BILLY JOEL

Either way, they're both on Saturday, and Saturday seems to have a good line up, so my preliminary plan(preferably having me not miss work and help my poor ass friends come with me)would be to rent a car(mine's...well..long drive, old car, not in the mood to break down halfway between Texas and NO)and leave Friday after work, get there late, wake up early, and spend all Saturday at the festival

my sister went to NO years ago and enjoyed just sight seeing, but that was before Katrina. If it's still a neat place to poke around we could do that on Sunday I guess and leave and get back late that day

THOUGH I just checked and it's really like a 5.5 hour drive >_> so this might require more cautious planning

VThornheart

From what I hear, that's the God of all Jazz festivals. Do it man. Do it for all of us who can't get there.

Dark Moon

Oh my god. Dr. John, Stevie Wonder, Bela Fleck, the Neville Brothers, Chick Corea AND Bobby McFerrin, Billy Joel, the Count Bassie Jazz Orchestra, the Tower of goddamn Power?! Are you fucking insane!? Even one of those acts is a good enough reason to drive 50 hours. At 4 hours away and with all of those acts playing, and far more, I will personally curse you every day for the rest of my sorry, Northern existence if you do not take advantage of this opportunity.