Jazz Fest has a Distance Problem; Here's a Solution

The Acura Grand Marshal pen for Tank and The Bangas in 2019, by Alex Rawls

Do fans really have to be so far away for the first acts of the day on Jazz Fest’s biggest stages?

On Friday morning at around 11:45, Montreal’s Kizaba opened the Festival Stage by playing to 20 to 30 people on the front rail and another 50 or so back at the chair line. Scatter another 100 or so around the stage and you have a brutal situation for any musician. In this case, the sad crowd was a function of intake issues, but even on a normal day when the entry process goes as smoothly as planned, the fans who care enough to see the first band of the day at the Festival and Shell Gentilly stages can’t get closer than 25 to 30 yards away from the stage. Congo Square Stage backs the crowd up as well, but it doesn’t look as severe.

In 2019, Tank and The Bangas were celebrating their first album on Verve Forecast, Green Balloon, but when they played at 1:40 p.m., you can see the space open in front of them. At all three stages, the photo pit and the Grand Marshal enclosures keep fans from getting any closer, even though they’re usually empty for the early sets each day. 

Their lack of use is understandable. The people who paid for those packages didn’t get them so they could see Kizaba or Naughty Professor or Tank and The Bangas in the middle of the day. They bought them so that they could get to Jazz Fest on their time and have a spot near the front row waiting for them for The Who and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The space goes largely unused until later, which means the artists that play in the front half of the day do so for an audience a Tipitina’s away. 

The question is, does it have to be this way? Do the first acts simply have to eat it and deal with not only playing to the first people in the gate but those people 30 or more yards away? Or is there a way to create a better situation for the artists and their fans?

Here’s my suggestion: open the pens for the first two sets of the day. After that cut off point, anybody not holding the proper credentials has to leave. That practice would put some of the prime real estate at the festival to good use earlier in the day when it is often empty, and it would make the musical experience better for the artists and their fans. When Kizaba played in the Cultural Exchange Pavilion later in the day, he was face to face with his audience and delivered one of the most joyous sets of the weekend.

This change would also help mitigate the divisive air that the enclosures create at a festival that has historically tried to foster a more egalitarian vibe. We’re not all in it together if a real Stevie Nicks fan has to watch The Revivalists and Samantha Fish to be as close as possible for Stevie, and a Grand Marshal passholder who likes that song about Rhiannon can arrive five minutes before the set and stand right in front of hm or her in the pen. 

If Jazz Fest genuinely wanted to make a situation that was better for fans, it could reconfigure the enclosure so that it only abutted part of the stage and left part of it available to true fans. In the meantime, opening the pens for the first two sets would be a good start. 

What do you think?