When I started OffBeat some 25 years ago, I could not understand why it seemed that the city curled up into itself like a doodlebug when it’s too hot to go outside.
Business and commerce still takes place. Yeah, it’s wicked hot and sticky, but it’s not necessarily that much hotter than it was during the 2012 Jazz Fest weekends. Did that keep anyone from going to the Jazz Fest? Nope.
The attendance figures tell that tale. Jazz Fest organizers estimate 450,000 people attended the seven-day event, which was an increase from 400,000 in 2011 and 375,000 in 2010. This year’s festival attendance was the largest since pre-Katrina, in 2003. The largest Jazz Fest was in 2001, when almost 620,000 people crowded the Fair Grounds.
My point is that certain people will come to the city whether it’s hot or not. You just have to give them a good reason to come.
What’s a good reason? A music festival. It obviously works.
The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau’s focus has been on non-summer months. Typically, we get few conventions and meetings in the summer because it’s too damn hot. But hotel rates in New Orleans summers are cheap as hell. Many of those meetings are school and religious organizations that typically don’t have a lot of money to spend.
Tourism folks may need to focus on leisure travelers who aren’t necessarily intimidated by the heat and humidity. Try Northern Europe. I can tell you from personal observation that the moment the sun comes out in Scandinavia, people strip off their clothes, even when it’s 60 degrees outside. Heat and humidity aren’t deemed to be reasons to prevent travel to New Orleans by Northern Europeans.
In the summer, we have few music-oriented festivals: The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation’s Cajun and Zydeco Festival in June, Essence Fest in July and Satchmo SummerFest in August. There are other celebrations during the summer (Festigals, White Linen Night, Dirty Linen Night, Running of the Bulls), but none have the attendance generated by Mardi Gras, the French Quarter Fest, the Jazz Fest and Voodoo.
These are the kinds of festivals we need in New Orleans to get us out of the summer doldrums.
I’ve heard estimates that fewer than 11 percent of visitors to New Orleans are from other countries, and frankly, this is a shame. I hold our tourism officials liable because they need to rethink summers in New Orleans in order to attract people who love the city and its music so much that they don’t care whether it’s hot or not.
I have been told by countless OffBeat readers who don’t live in Louisiana that they love to come here to experience music, whether there’s a festival or not. Our music has always been hot; we just have to remind people that they can come any time, not just spring and fall.
