Katrina couldn’t stop the music.
The 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival will go on as usual in post-Katrina New Orleans this spring, buoyed by a deal with a first-ever presenting sponsor, the Shell oil company, producer Quint Davis said Tuesday.
New Orleans native Fats Domino, whose home in the Lower Ninth Ward was flooded by Hurricane Katrina, will be among the featured acts.
Davis said the festival will take place at its usual location — the historic Fair Grounds horse racing track — on the last weekend of April and the first weekend in May, its traditional dates.
“In light of the great financial challenges of presenting the 2006 festival on the grand scale everyone is accustomed to, we simply could not have produced Jazz Fest without unprecedented corporate support from Shell...,” Davis said in a statement. Ten other corporate sponsors also are supporting the event.
Along with Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest is one of New Orleans’ major tourist attractions. Average annual attendance, including locals and tourists, is roughly 500,000. The festival features a variety of musical acts playing simultaneously on numerous stages on the Fair Grounds infield, along with food booths featuring Louisiana cuisine and numerous arts and crafts venues.
Among the challenges facing this year’s organizers: attracting big-name acts, as well as rounding up local musicians who have scattered around the nation after their homes, and their local performance venues, were damaged by Katrina.