Jazzachella Fest

AEG Live President/CEO Randy Phillips got a good lesson in the virtues of flexibility during the last few weeks, crisscrossing the country as two massive festivals overlapped the first weekend in May, and one continued the next.

And both came with challenges well beyond their usual scope.

The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival took on a couple of high-maintenance artists this year in Madonna and Kanye West. And the problems facing this year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival probably need no explanation.

Both were unqualified successes. Coachella sold out both days, believed to be a first, with Madonna performing a six-song set in the Sahara dance tent May 7th. In New Orleans the same weekend, a superstar lineup including Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen kicked off Jazzfest – an event few believed could even be pulled off just six months ago.

“We had to send one team to New Orleans and keep another in Los Angeles for Coachella,” Phillips told Pollstar. “I was obligated to Madonna’s manager to be at Coachella for her set, but what was happening the same day in New Orleans was such an emotional, amazing thing. Bruce was phenomenal; it was a crazy scene on the stage with more than 20 musicians up there at once.”

While some fans and critics sniped that Coachella had somehow managed to “jump the shark” by booking such mainstream artists as Madonna and West for what many consider to be the premier showcase for cutting-edge emerging talent, Phillips brushed off the criticism.

“Coachella was such a dismal failure it sold out both days,” Phillips said, laughing. “But what it proves is something different – that it’s able to support a broad range of artists and fans.”

While final attendance figures aren’t in for Jazzfest, Phillips estimated the crowds over the event’s six days at 400,000. The annual festival has averaged about 500,000 in recent years, but this time the Fair Grounds site was literally under five feet of water in September at the height of post-Katrina flooding.

AEG Live and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation co-produce the event. They decided in January the show must go on despite the massive damage to the festival site and the uncertainties of the market after the August 29th hurricane devastated the region.

“If you had told me in January that Jazzfest would have been this successful, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Phillips said. “Even now, hotel rooms are down by a third in the city and a lot of people who turned out drove in from the surrounding areas. It’s a real statement of the support of people for Jazzfest and New Orleans.”

The festival wasn’t without its disappointment – native son and icon Fats Domino was forced to cancel his show-closing appearance at the last minute and was taken to a local hospital after coming to the festival grounds and apologizing to fans from the Acura Stage. But again, flexibility was the keyword – and Lionel Richie added an additional 40 minutes to his set, bringing down the house to close out the festival.

“Lionel Richie was fantastic,” Phillips raved. “He was donating his time as it was, and he didn’t hesitate to add on that additional time with almost no notice – and he had 50,000 fans going wild by the time he was done.”

Phillips added that most of the big names at Jazzfest had either donated their talent or played at greatly reduced fees to cover travel and other costs.

Foundation president Quint Davis, decked out the last day of the festival in blue and white tie-dye, was especially pleased with the Jazz & Heritage Festival.

“I’m shocked, personally,” Davis said. “It was all an unknown – how New Orleans was going to respond, how the nation was going to respond. When it turned out to be big or bigger than the other festivals, it was astounding.”

Davis said he was especially surprised at the turnout for the festival’s second weekend.

“It really was a big open question as to what the second weekend would be like, whether it would be down, whether it would have the same excitement, same power as the first weekend,” he said. “I didn’t expect it at all. It was just incredible.”

– Deborah Speer