Maximize Your Experience: a Primer for Jazz Fest's Final Weekend

Music and dance takes to the streets. (Photo: Bill Haber/AP)

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: there’s more to see and take in at Jazz Fest (a.k.a. the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival) than you could ever imagine, both on the festival grounds and in the areas surrounding it. And while the first weekend has just come and gone, there’s still the second (and best, in our opinion) weekend to plan. So here’s a quick and easy guide for festival novices, courtesy of yours truly—a Jazz Fest veteran. I’ll let you know what to do when you’re not dancing to a band’s music with a bunch of strangers under the hot Louisiana sun.

Brazilian Dance Group. (Photo: Gerald Herbert)

The Setting

Unless you’ve been, you might not know that Jazz Fest is held at a horse racing track (The Fairgrounds), surrounded almost entirely by a residential area known as the Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans. Twice a year, New Orleans’ spotlight shines on Mid-City: on the Saturday before Mardi Gras when the Endymion parade rolls through the area, and for the two weekends of Jazz Fest. For each occasion, residents of Mid-City go all out, turning the area surrounding the Fairgrounds into a giant, continuous block party.

George Duke performing with bassist Stanley Clark. (Photo: Gerald Herbert/AP)

The Music

Are you planning on being one of the roughly 400,000 people who will attend the 45th annual Jazz Fest this year? If so, chances are you’re going for the music. And who could blame you? Jazz Fest’s diverse musical lineup is the main attraction, and the lineup for the festival’s second and final weekend features a number of widely known acts—Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Arcade Fire, Christina Aguilera—along with hundreds of popular Louisiana performers.

Crawfish, a signature dish of the region. (Photo: Wally Gobetz)

The Food

There’s an argument to be made that the cost of a Jazz Fest ticket—single-day tickets purchased in advance are $55—is worth it for access to the wide array of food options alone. The musical performers may come and go, but the food offerings have remained virtually unchanged through the years. But good luck asking locals to name their favorite food item—it’s impossible to find a consensus.

If Jazz Fest has a signature dish, it’s probably the Crawfish Monica—crawfish tails cooked in a spicy cream sauce and served over spiral pasta—or the crawfish bread, a mixture of crawfish tails and cheese baked inside of bread. My personal favorites include:

— The crawfish enchiladas and the duck, pheasant and andouille gumbo, both of which are made by Prejean’s in Lafayette, two hours west on I-10.

— Ms. Linda Green’s yakamein, a cross between gumbo and Asian ramen. It’s probably only known outside of New Orleans due to Green’s appearances on “Chopped” and “No Reservations.”

— The spicy meat pies served by Mrs. Wheat’s Foods of Natchitoches.

— The cochon de lait po boy: tender, shredded pork that’s smoked to perfection and topped with cole slaw and served on po boy bread.

Cochon de lait po boy. (Photo: Wally Gobetz)

— Wash it all down with a couple of the Festival’s signature beverage offerings: the strawberry lemonade and the rose-mint iced tea. And for dessert you can’t go wrong with a mango freeze or a snoball.

Additionally, there are two Festival stages dedicated not to serving food but to food preparation and education: the Food Heritage Stage and the Cajun Cabin. Visit either and you’ll experience what amounts to a live cooking show hosted by local culinary icons.

Arts and Crafts

Unknown to many Jazz Fest virgins is the fact that the Festival is a huge showcase for artists, designers, and creators of all stripes selling an array of goods, from paintings to photographs to clothing to jewelry to hand-woven baskets. Vendor booths at Jazz Fest are highly sought after—many vendors have spent years on the waiting list to get in. And for good reason—some vendors make the bulk of their annual income selling their goods at Jazz Fest.

Word of advice: if you see something you like, don’t fret about having to carry it around all day at the Festival. Most vendors will ship your purchases to you. And if there’s something you really want, don’t wait to get it; many vendors aren’t present each day of the Festival. So if you run across something you absolutely have to have, grab it, because it might not be there when you come back.

Kick back and enjoy the festival. (Photo: Kim Kruse)

Hang Out with the Locals

It’s not uncommon to see bands performing in driveways and garages instead of at Jazz Fest. Many yards are turned into parking lots for Festival attendees. Residents even open their homes for strangers to tour, and local retail merchants like Krewe du Optic (sunglasses) and Flying Fox (handbags) set up makeshift front-lawn shops on heavily trafficked streets to sell their wares. Last year, one household sold Jell-O shots to passersby from their front porch, while another family posted a sign that read “Rinse Yo Feet” and ran a hose from the house to the street so that festival-goers leaving the Fest wearing sandals and flip-flops could, well, wash the dirt off of their feet.

Southern hospitality doesn’t get much more southern and hospitable than that.

Brett Michael Dykes, a Louisiana native who has attended Jazz Fest many times over the course of his life, is the editor-in-chief of Uproxx.com and a contributor to The New York Times.