This year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival brought artists like The Who, Elton John, Widespread Panic and more to the New Orleans Fair Grounds in 2015. Now, NOLA.com is reporting that this year’s festival recorded the highest attendance since the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The festival brought in a whopping 460,000 people, an increase from the 435,000 that attended over all seven days of the festival last year. The fest recorded its highest-ever attendance in 2001 with 650,000 people, boasting a lineup that included Dave Matthews Band, Paul Simon and Mystikal.
Those in attendance at the festival can confirm that there were far too many people present, and many are calling for fest organizers to impose attendance caps next year. As is apparent from the above aerial photo (via AP Photo/Gerald Herbert for the Advocate), people were packed all the way to the back fence of the Fairgrounds and all around the dirt track as far as one could go. Not only was it impossible to move, but most couldn’t even see the massive screens. Many locals and Fest frequenters agreed that it felt the most crowded it ever had, and believe attendance should be capped in the future.
“This can only occur when the promoter oversells an event and public safety officials fail to, or are incapable of, stopping the over crowding influx of people,” says Paul Wertheimer, founder of Crowd Management Strategies, a Los Angeles-based international crowd safety consulting service. He says the festival’s situation represents “the most deadly and injurious crowd configuration in live entertainment.” [Via The Advocate]
“They get in the way of people who want to enjoy themselves. It’s selfishness,” one local said.
Fans believe that the festival should sell tickets specific to each day, as opposed to GA tickets that can be used for any day. This could be an effective means to limit attendance, as certain days with several high profile performances often tend to draw higher crowds. Last Saturday, May 2nd, for example, saw Elton John, Ed Sheeran and T.I. all performing at the same time on different stages.
Jazz Fest will have to figure out how to accommodate all of the people by next year. The fest announced it will return to the Fairgrounds from April 22nd through May 1st.