Producers of the 2025 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival plan to reveal its music lineup on Wednesday.
The 54th edition of Jazz Fest is slated to span two four-day, Thursday-to-Sunday weekends at the Fair Grounds, opening on Thursday, April 24 and concluding on Sunday, May 4.
The successful 2024 Jazz Fest enjoyed consistently sunny weather and posted a total attendance of 500,000, including a sold-out crowd of 40,000 for the special "Rolling Stones Thursday."
Longtime Jazz Fest producer/director Quint Davis said after the 2024 fest that the plan going forward was to keep the festival at eight days.
That doesn't necessarily mean that 2025 will have another special, premium ticket day like "Rolling Stones Thursday." This year could be more like 2019, with two "Locals' Thursdays" featuring discounted tickets for Louisiana residents.
What Davis, his Festival Productions Inc.-New Orleans team and their partners at AEG have cooked up for 2025 will be revealed Wednesday.
Fans of the festival have speculated for weeks about who might be on the roster.
One BNA -- "big name act" -- that seems a likely candidate for 2025 is Pearl Jam. The Seattle rockers previously performed at Jazz Fest in 2010 and 2016.
The recently announced 2025 North American leg of the band's "Dark Matter" tour includes several springtime dates in the southeast. The announced shows kick off April 24 and 26 in Hollywood, Florida, followed by April 29 and May 1 in Atlanta. The next announced concerts on Pearl Jam's calendar are May 6 and 8 in Nashville.
That leaves open the possibility of Pearl Jam returning to the Fair Grounds on Jazz Fest's second weekend.
Modern rock guitarist Jack White, another Jazz Fest veteran, has a gap in his touring schedule between an April 19 show in Nashville and a May 4 gig in Austin. Making a second-weekend stop at Jazz Fest could preface an easy drive to Austin.
Rapper Kendrick Lamar will be in New Orleans to perform during halftime of Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9. In April, he kicks off a 19-date stadium tour, dubbed the Grand National Tour, with SZA. That tour is in Houston on April 23, Dallas on April 26, Atlanta on April 29 and Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 3.
In theory, Lamar could make a Jazz Fest appearance in between those dates if he wasn't bringing along his full stage production. But now that he's graduated to stadium headlining status, his fee may be more than Jazz Fest would want to pay.
Also, AEG rival Live Nation Entertainment is producing the Grand National Tour, which would likely complicate booking Lamar at Jazz Fest.
Similarly, Live Nation is producing the Big Ass Stadium Tour featuring Post Malone and Jelly Roll. However, Jelly Roll is also playing the Buckeye Country Superfest in Ohio in June, which is produced by AEG.
Could Jelly Roll swing by the Fair Grounds before the Big Ass Stadium Tour launches on April 29 in Salt Lake City?
Theoretically, that's possible.
We'll know one way or the other on Wednesday.