The event spotlighting New Orleans’ music venues and musicians returns on September 23.

NOLA x NOLA started in 2021 as an effort to help New Orleans’ music venues survive the changing musical landscape. COVID devastated New Orleans’ live music infrastructure, and it got worse when Jazz Fest realized that it couldn’t run last October. Clubs that limped along counting on the festival to bring customers back suddenly faced a far less promising month, some with national, big-ticket acts booked in anticipation of Jazz Fest audiences. NOLA x NOLA encouraged fans in other cities who bought tickets to come to New Orleans for Jazz Fest to use those tickets and see music in the clubs if it wasn’t at the Fair Grounds. NOLA x NOLA began as a way for venues to come together as a community and remind the city, state, region and country that they were still here, still putting on shows, and still trying to keep New Orleans musicians at work.

NOLA x NOLA returns for round two this year, and it’s a work in progress. All the speakers at a Thursday press conference looked forward to it growing into a tradition like Jazz Fest and French Quarter Fest. This year, it uses the window from September 23-October 9 with 55 participating venues to present a snapshot of New Orleans’ nightlife focused not on international stars that headline Jazz Fest or New Orleans’ biggest names that top the French Quarter Festival bills but the clubs themselves and and the musicians who play them.

At the press conference, Mark Romig, senior vice-president and chief marketing officer for New Orleans & Company, declared the first year a success in part, he admitted jokingly, because they had no rubric to measure success. But he considered it an occasion for people to “get involved in the city of New Orleans,” and he hoped that  the activity will result in hotel room bookings and restaurant reservations so that the event will help the city and not only the music community. They have already started marketing NOLAxNOLA in neighboring states that are within driving distance of New Orleans, and earlier this week, Irma Thomas and NOLA x NOLA founder Sig Greenebaum did a series of interviews from Preservation Hall to tell television stations around the country how people coming to New Orleans during this time will see New Orleans music where it lives.

“October in New Orleans is a good time for musicians,” Galactic drummer Stanton Moore said at the press conference. Moore was there to speak as a band member and club owner since Galactic owns Tipitina’s. Many of New Orleans’ musicians tour during the summer to get away from the city’s heat and humidity he explained, but they’re back by October, and the cooling nights make it a good time for musical adventures.

Right now, NOLA x NOLA is a thought experiment. What happens if someone put a frame around any two weeks of the New Orleans’ music calendar and called it a festival? That may not sound like an event on paper, but the French Quarter Festival was built on a similar talent pool and premise. The clubs didn’t hot shot their booking, so the musicians performing will be representative of what happens year around. The Fillmore will feature Jack White and Flaming Lips during NOLA x NOLA, but the venue in Harrah’s specializes in big name, touring talent. The Maple Leaf Bar features nights with George Porter Jr., Johnny Vidacovich, TBC Brass Band and Jon Cleary among others, while Gasa Gasa features a mix of touring and indie rock bands including King Buffalo, Adam Hood, and New Orleans’ Flagboy Giz.

Some of the venues are spicing up shows to make NOLA x NOLA more of an event. Big Sam’s Funky Nation added guests Erica Falls, Alfred Banks and DJ Black Pearl to his Tipitina’s set on September 23, and Quintron will join Michot’s Melody Makers when they play The Broadside on the 24th.

“Hurricane Ida added insult to injury,” Greenbaum said at the press conference. The damage and disruption it caused in September 2021 put the inaugural NOLA x NOLA behind the eight ball, particularly at a time when people were trying to get their heads around a new event that didn’t come with the star power that accompanied Jazz Fest, Voodoo, and Buku. Greenebaum sees NOLA x NOLA as a work in progress with immense potential, and this year they’re trying to better frame the event and reintroduce it in less chaotic circumstances. Ben Jaffe, artistic director for Preservation Hall said Thursday that the idea of a period that shines a light on New Orleans’ music in the clubs where it lives is something that has been in musicians’ minds for years.

“This is something that should and could exist in New Orleans,” he explained.