Thirty days before the gates open, the 2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has revealed its full daily schedule, with performance times and stage assignments.
Fans of the festival can now start planning their daily Fair Grounds itinerary, as well as bemoaning the tough choices regarding acts that are performing simultaneously.
The schedule “cubes” were posted on Jazz Fest’s web site as the producers held a press conference at the Fair Grounds Race Course.
The big news to come out of Tuesday’s press conference was that Jazz Fest will shift to a cashless model this year. Only credit cards will be accepted at food booths and other vendors throughout the grounds.
In other news, New Orleans attorney Morris Bart is the new sponsor of the Gospel Tent.
The 52nd edition of what is officially the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell encompass a three-day opening weekend, April 28-30, and a four-day, Thursday through Sunday weekend, May 4-7.
Weekend passes, single-day tickets and VIP packages are on sale now via the festival’s web site.
Daily tickets are $85 plus fees in advance. The gate price for a single-day ticket is $95.
May 4 is “Locals Thursday.” Louisiana residents with valid identification can buy two single-day tickets at the gate that day for $50 apiece.
Nearly every marquee act from the COVID-canceled 2020 and 2021 Jazz Fests that didn’t appear in 2022 will get another chance at the Fair Grounds in 2023.
That list includes flute-toting R&B force of nature Lizzo; the Grateful Dead-derived Dead & Company; alternative-folk band the Lumineers; contemporary R&B guitar hero H.E.R.; veteran rocker Melissa Etheridge; rapper Ludacris; and the world premiere of the Wu-Tang Clan’s collaboration with New Orleans’ own the Soul Rebels.
They’ll join Ed Sheeran, Mumford & Sons, Jill Scott, Santana, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Kane Brown, Leon Bridges, Kenny Loggins, Herbie Hancock, Tom Jones, Jazmine Sullivan, Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, the Steve Miller Band and hundreds of local musicians on the festival’s 14 stages
Multiple Grammy-winning Kenner native Jon Batiste, who appeared on the 2022 Jazz Fest poster but was unable to perform that year because of a scheduling conflict, tops the roster of homegrown talent.
The crowd dances to the music of J Balvin as he performs on the Gentilly Stage during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Sunday, April 28, 2019. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
That roster also encompasses Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, who traditionally closes the main stage on the final Sunday, as well as the Revivalists, Irma Thomas, Galactic, Anders Osborne, Terence Blanchard, Cyril Neville, Tank and the Bangas, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Kermit Ruffins, John Boutte, Dumpstaphunk and even car-dealing crooner Ronnie Lamarque, back at the Fair Grounds for the second consecutive year.
The 52nd edition of what is officially the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell will celebrate the music and culture of Puerto Rico on both weekends.
Puerto Rican musicians, cultural displays, parades and cuisine are part of the expanded programming around the festival’s Cultural Exchange Pavilion.
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