Jacksonville Jazz Festival a Huge Success
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Sights and scenes from Downtown's 2011 Jacksonville Jazz Festival. There is no doubt that this year's Jazz Festival an unqualified success, one of several for the City, and its vivacious Special Events Office. More than that, it was also solid proof that a properly planned urban festival creates the synergy and crowds that will help breathe life back into the urban core. Check out these amazing photos, showing the densest crowds packed into downtown streets in recent years.
Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-may-jacksonville-jazz-festival-a-huge-success
A huge hit... enjoyed yesterday... my only day to attend. :) 8)
Love the swirly-swoopy fabric thingies everywhere.
And as MetJax has been saying forever, the solution to the "vagrant problem" downtown is to simply outnumber them. I presume the same hundred-odd homeless people are still in these pics somewhere, but it's irrelevant when there are several thousand other folks filling the space.
Great pictures...thanks!
Had a good time out there Saturday night and then a fantastic late night snack at Kickback's. I wish the place looked like that every weekend (well, maybe with fewer people sitting in lawn chairs in the middle of Monroe St). Hooplady is right - we may have seen a couple vagrants but didn't notice them among all the other people.
Plus, it was Jacksonville, with all that live music, and no Skynyrd! It was like I was in a whole other world!
And the fountain looked FANTASTIC. My wife and the couple we were with watched it from the Main St Bridge for 10 minutes and caught it just as the middle fountain shot up. Haven't seen that in forever. It looks better than it ever did.
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WOW! Almost Unbelievable
02, We watched you take those first two pictures. Hope you weren't so busy with the camera that you couldn't enjoy Tiner's fantastic music.
Sunday was super busy, loved seeing everyone downtown. Using the skyway, buying from local mechants, everything was great.
Hmm. Where are the homeless and vagrants? Were they relocated or did they just blend in with the crowd? It seems to me one of the simple solutions for DT is to program the hell out it. More events (in the actual core, not Metropolitan Park) on a regular basis equates to more people on the streets on a regular basis.
correct Stephen...I was out around 10am Saturday morning and saw some folks in Hemming Plaza playing chess, cards and the usual....by a little after noon they were largely invisible
Also keep in mind that some homeless aren't really comfortable around crowds of people...be that mental illness, fear of ridicule, etc....so once the crwods picked up, they went soemwhere else.
Quote from: thelakelander on May 31, 2011, 10:31:56 AM
Hmm. Where are the homeless and vagrants? Were they relocated or did they just blend in with the crowd? It seems to me one of the simple solutions for DT is to program the hell out it. More events (in the actual core, not Metropolitan Park) on a regular basis equates to more people on the streets on a regular basis.
The thing about the homeless is that when there is a multitide of people, they kind of disppear into the background. Thats why the homeless are not an issue with our DT IMO. the more active DT becomes, the less you will see them.
Quote from: thelakelander on May 31, 2011, 10:31:56 AM
Hmm. Where are the homeless and vagrants? Were they relocated or did they just blend in with the crowd? It seems to me one of the simple solutions for DT is to program the hell out it. More events (in the actual core, not Metropolitan Park) on a regular basis equates to more people on the streets on a regular basis.
Makes sense to me. I seem to recall this was one of the Godbold administration's points of emphasis too.
Had a great time on Sunday. Wild Magnolias at the Hemming Stage put on a helluva show with several 2nd lines through the crowd One of which was b/c the stage nazis wouldn't let them bring people out of the crowd onto the stage. This is apparently part of their regular stage show everywhere but the band seemed aghast that event officials would be so opposed.
Landing stage was nice with the breeze coming off the river. Beautiful setting with the river and bridges in the background. The members of the band Artofficial felt so at home (they're from Miami) that they kept referring to it as the harbor. We kind of avoided the main stage b/c there is absolutely no shade. Caught a portion of Herbie Hancock but was somewhat underwhelmed and caught the tail end of Guitarzz at Hemming Stage.
All in all had a great time with lots of good people watching, chamber of commerce weather and some fantastic music for FREE! Downtown is a fantastic overall venue for this event. Much better than Metro park.
Quote from: Wacca Pilatka on May 31, 2011, 11:49:14 AM
Quote from: thelakelander on May 31, 2011, 10:31:56 AM
Hmm. Where are the homeless and vagrants? Were they relocated or did they just blend in with the crowd? It seems to me one of the simple solutions for DT is to program the hell out it. More events (in the actual core, not Metropolitan Park) on a regular basis equates to more people on the streets on a regular basis.
Makes sense to me. I seem to recall this was one of the Godbold administration's points of emphasis too.
Peyton was quoted as saying that too. The idea is that the more people total there are downtown, the less the homeless population stands out.
If any of you rode the Skyway during Jazz Fest, you should make sure to email JTA good or bad experiences.
Great pictures! Thanks for everyone's comments here. We are continuing to post photos and videos on the Jazz Festival Facebook page www.facebook.com/jacksonvillejazzfestival along with many fans who are also posting theirs as well. We will upload more photos to our website www.JaxJazzFest.com daily as our photographers sort through them. Thanks again for everyone's support!
Quote from: hooplady on May 30, 2011, 09:17:49 AM
Love the swirly-swoopy fabric thingies everywhere.
And as MetJax has been saying forever, the solution to the "vagrant problem" downtown is to simply outnumber them. I presume the same hundred-odd homeless people are still in these pics somewhere, but it's irrelevant when there are several thousand other folks filling the space.
Great pictures...thanks!
I agree 100% because this fits in with what I have been saying for years. As long as we abandon downtown, we allow the vagrants to dominate by default. Too many people have been afraid to venture downtown because of some real or perceived fear that they were going to be raped, mauled or killed by some psycho vagrant. Regular events put people on the streets and create a much different scene for our downtown.
Our urban outdoorsmen were there. They were just mellowed out and quiet because they could buy and consume booze on the street legally for a change. ;D
Quote from: fsujax on May 31, 2011, 01:40:05 PM
If any of you rode the Skyway during Jazz Fest, you should make sure to email JTA good or bad experiences.
JTA says there were 7,000 rides taken on the Skyway during the 2 1/2 days of the Jazz Festival. I wonder how many of those were for the first time and what those impressions of the Skyway were?
QuoteJTA says there were 7,000 rides taken on the Skyway during the 2 1/2 days of the Jazz Festival. I wonder how many of those were for the first time and what those impressions of the Skyway were?
Considering the change machines in many stations ran out of coins for several very long stretches of the day Saturday and Sunday, and several stations' fare boxes were full for over half the day Saturday forcing everyone to resort to jumping the turnstile... I have to believe the 'actual' number was far, far higher.
Anytime I ran into a JTA official(only twice at Hemming Plaza, no other JTA officials in site at any stations I visited during the weekend) and let them know... they just shrugged it off.
For referance, I rode the skyway 12 times b/w Friday and Sunday.
Quote from: fieldafm on June 01, 2011, 12:15:35 PM
QuoteJTA says there were 7,000 rides taken on the Skyway during the 2 1/2 days of the Jazz Festival. I wonder how many of those were for the first time and what those impressions of the Skyway were?
Considering the change machines in many stations ran out of coins for several very long stretches of the day Saturday and Sunday, and several stations' fare boxes were full for over half the day Saturday forcing everyone to resort to jumping the turnstile... I have to believe the 'actual' number was far, far higher.
Anytime I ran into a JTA official(only twice at Hemming Plaza, no other JTA officials in site at any stations I visited during the weekend) and let them know... they just shrugged it off.
For referance, I rode the skyway 12 times b/w Friday and Sunday.
My wife and are were two... Parked at the Prime and put my 50 cents in and voila... turnstyle stays locked forcing us to hop. It should be free 24/7/365
the 7,000 may be from the counts taken on the platform vs. the turnstiles...if so, it is accurate
Quote from: tufsu1 on June 01, 2011, 02:16:15 PM
the 7,000 may be from the counts taken on the platform vs. the turnstiles...if so, it is accurate
Indications were at the turnstiles.
Quote from: exnewsman on June 01, 2011, 03:51:41 PM
Quote from: tufsu1 on June 01, 2011, 02:16:15 PM
the 7,000 may be from the counts taken on the platform vs. the turnstiles...if so, it is accurate
Indications were at the turnstiles.
So many more than 7000 used skyway... unless they fixed the PO turnstyles Sunday... those folks hopped.
Rode the Skyway 8 times during the weekend. Hopped the turnstiles 3 times (it was broken once, and twice the change machine was out or just not working). There was no JTA personnel around at all, so over I went (or just walked through the handicapped gate if my kid was with me in her stroller).
I'd like to chalk it up to the weekend rush, but sadly I've ran into these problem before & know thats not the case. JTA is just bad at managing this stuff. It really should be completely free. At least then they'd get a more accurate number of riders.
Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 01, 2011, 12:37:12 PM
Quote from: fieldafm on June 01, 2011, 12:15:35 PM
QuoteJTA says there were 7,000 rides taken on the Skyway during the 2 1/2 days of the Jazz Festival. I wonder how many of those were for the first time and what those impressions of the Skyway were?
Considering the change machines in many stations ran out of coins for several very long stretches of the day Saturday and Sunday, and several stations' fare boxes were full for over half the day Saturday forcing everyone to resort to jumping the turnstile... I have to believe the 'actual' number was far, far higher.
Anytime I ran into a JTA official(only twice at Hemming Plaza, no other JTA officials in site at any stations I visited during the weekend) and let them know... they just shrugged it off.
For referance, I rode the skyway 12 times b/w Friday and Sunday.
My wife and are were two... Parked at the Prime and put my 50 cents in and voila... turnstyle stays locked forcing us to hop. It should be free 24/7/365
+1
Anyone have any photos of the Skyway during Jazz Fest? Curious to see what 7,000 people looks like on the "people mover"
Wow!!!!!! I am so thrilled, juiced up, glad, and happy for Jacksonville for finally pulling off a successful event, finally! I will attend the one next year if it follows suit with the success of this one.
Heights Unknown
Quote from: duvaldude08 on May 31, 2011, 11:13:02 AMThe thing about the homeless is that when there is a multitide of people, they kind of disppear into the background. Thats why the homeless are not an issue with our DT IMO. the more active DT becomes, the less you will see them.
Yep! It's called "solution by dilution."
Kudos to Jax for putting on what looks to have been a stellar jazz festival!