Jacksonville Jazz Festival this weekend!

[RockStar]

Such an awesome event. So well done. Photos are great. Just all in all stoked that Jax could put something like this together. Well done, congrats and thank you to all who were involved in making this happen.
~j.

[lindab]

I think the roof blew off the Snyder Memorial during that rockin' gospel choir and the ever cool Noel Friedline group. The emotion was sky high at the end of one hour and 30 minutes of music. Just a great great jazz festival and so many people really enjoying the day and the cool night breezes. Thank you festival planners.

[MASDjax]

Here is a great one from Sunday during Patti LaBelle's performance. This was taken from the top of the Duval St. Garage (corner of Duval and Main Street). The orange dot on stage is Patti and by the end of her performance, there wasn't an inch of grass left in the pocket park to sit on.

[lindab]

Best use of that little park since it's creation.

[Keith-N-Jax]

It finally gets used by people who actually pay taxes. Wonderful scene though.

[Jerry Moran]

After polling other nearby merchants, and having had a week to digest, we all agreed that the 2010 Jazz Festival was a success as an entertainment  event.  The feel of the crowd was good, and the music met expectations.

Downtown brick and mortar businesses suffered.  La Cena’s Tuesday â€" Thursday business was destroyed by street closures on Thursday, and the anticipation of event parking and other logistical problems by the dining public throughout the week.  Friday and Saturday nights’ volume was less than half of a normal weekend.  After seeing the Friday night festival attendees, we decided that opening for lunch on Saturday and Sunday would be futile.  Overall, for Jazz Festival week, sales at La Cena were off 60% from the previous week and 70% from this week.

To my knowledge, Chew was not open during the event.  Benoit at the Magnificant Café said his sales were weak considering the number of people on the street.  He did not open on Sunday based on Saturday’s experience.  Jerry at the Zodiac seemed to do all right on Saturday night.  He had some entertainment, so that surely helped.  Ron at Chamblin’s did well too, but he always does considering the broad appeal his bookstore has.  I think he expected sales to be much better than they were.  Charla at the Next Gallery didn’t like having to look at the back of a clothing vendor's tent all day long.

Special Events was cooperative, by not placing a diesel generator on Laura Street between Adams and Monroe, but only after I had to threaten legal action.  During the 2009 Jazz Festival, a diesel generator was placed at the Elk’s Building main entrance, and the entire building smelled of diesel fumes.  I did not want a repeat of that.

Traffic control was better than in 2009, and Sgt. Leonard Propper of the JSO was very helpful.  Sgt. Propper was quick to respond to situations and make adjustments to traffic patterns, and handle citizen complaints about a few abusive JSO officers who were manning the intersections.

It’s pretty clear that the Jazz Festival crowd is not interested in upscale dining, or, for that matter, indoor dining at all.   Only a handful of people came into La Cena’s bar.  We did not know that beer was going for $5 a bottle on the street, and warned our first bar patrons that our beer was “pricy” at $5.75 for an import.  The guests thought it was a deal, considering it was only 75 cents more than a street beer, and included house bread and butter, grissini, and all the air conditioning you can soak up. 

It’s a shame that the established, property tax paying brick and mortar merchants were displaced by the Gypsy vendors that set up tents overnight and raked in the dough selling $11 frozen drinks and $12 fish and soggy fries.

What about next year?  The merchants are working on it.

[mtraininjax]

I wonder if Downtown Jax can duplicate the scene with more events downtown, I have thrown down the gauntlet, now let's see them duplicate it.

Jerry - The only way to get better is to do it more often, once a year is not enough! At that rate, we'll be into 2-3 more generations before we see the events we dream of now.

[stjr]

It’s pretty clear that the Jazz Festival crowd is not interested in upscale dining, or, for that matter, indoor dining at all.  

Jerry, I would suggest otherwise.  We had such an interest but.... with an almost continuous schedule of entertainment, we found no "break" long enough to have an "inside" dining experience other than maybe the Subway.  If you want business, the festival needs to insert a "dinner" break and restaurants have to promise a turnaround within that break.  Even then, an issue would be if people want to give up good seats at stages for a meal only to come back to find such seats gone.  To address this, it would seem that they would have to clear out all seating after every act.  Good luck with that!  (I did notice people leaving portable chairs for a while and no one taking them.  So, maybe some would chance the break.)

I do think one opportunity would have been promoting a late after-the-show dinner on Sunday.  Patti Labelle finished by about 8 or 8:15 PM.  Thousands wandered about afterward.

Another option would be "gourmet" take out service through the festival tents/kiosks.  Order and prepay before one act and your food will be delivered and waiting there after the act is over.  That eliminates patrons leaving the festival area and takes care of the timing.

[Jerry Moran]

The dinner break is a good idea, and you have great insight into how the festival works for patrons.  All remaining the same, I think the only way local merchants can take advantage of these festivals is to get out on the street with everyone else.  Should I get a sidewalk cafe permit from the City, extend my licensed premises via the DABT onto the sidewalk, and offer  sandwiches, wine, and beer?  

I was hoping there would be a segment that would want to take a break from the street and get away for a couple of hours in a full service restaurant.  During the festival, many people looked at our menu posted at the door, but spun on their heels and spent almost as much money at a tent.  

Should the ballerina dance at the strip club a few times a year for the cash?  Maybe we will, and the performance will be better than anything a tent has to offer.  It will be interesting to see if the City will work with the Merchants, especially when the Merchants will not be paying those hefty kiosk fees.

[fieldafm]

No disrespect at all, but why wouldn't you want to be aggressive with all of those people in the area?  The merchants that had outside tents did very well.  I myself dropped some cash at Burrito Gallery(twice with their New Orleans themed fare), the Omni and the Beer Garden.  It seems that the promoters did their job to get the people downtown, the rest is up to you.  Having experience with outdoor festivals(both as a patron and running a few and/or being a vendor at a few) I can say the ones that don't get aggressive in getting their product out IN FRONT of the attendants are the ones that lose out.

Again, no disrepect whatsoever(b/c I sympathize with the great challenges you run into operating a restaurant downtown) but I don't think having to reorganize a festival around a dinner break just b/c you hope people will meander into your doors is the right thing to do.  From an organizers and a patrons perspective... you already have the constant problem of not having enough time to get in all that you want.  Get in front of the people, and they will fork over their cash.  They want to spend it, its either going to be the guy in front of them with food and beer... or the guy in the corner out of their way.  95% of the time they're going to give their cash to the food and beer that they can smell right in front of them.

Another case in point, I once ran a retail store that was tucked away in the corner of the mall.  It took all of one Christmas season to realize that even though the mall was packed that it was clearly time to bite the bullet and pay for a temporary kiosk to get my higher margin products in front of the traffic areas the second Christmas season.

As someone who was at the Jazz Festival spending money, and from the perspective gleaned from working similar festivals... that would be my advice for what its worth.

As someone who was your potential customer... I would have welcomed more quality food options(which I'm sure you would have provided, Ive eaten at your establishment before) but I wasnt going to take 45 minutes away from the festival to go sit inside a restaurant.