Jamaica booked up for jazz festival

(Jamaica Gleaner) The upcoming Jamaica Jazz & Blues weekend may find patrons scrambling for accommodation, as most hotels are either already fully booked or close to being booked out ahead of the festival.

The Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival, which will run from Thursday, January 26-Saturday, January 28 at the Trelawny Multi-purpose Stadium, will be celebrating their 17th anniversary. This year will see acts like mega superstar Celine Dion, Cee-Lo Green, Nicole Henry, Heads of State, Jully Black, Earl Klugh, The Temptations Review, featuring Dennis Edwards, Destra and Gentleman gracing the stage.

In honour of Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of Independence, the opening night of the festival is dedicated to all the rich sounds that have shaped Jamaica’s music over the past 50 years. That night will showcase onstage performances by Shaggy, Richie Stephens, John Holt, Yellowman, Half Pint, Tessanne Chin and Tami Chynn, Marcia Griffiths, Lloyd Parkes and We The People Band, George Nooks, Luciano, Mykal Rose, AJ Brown, Freddie McGregor, Pluto Shervington, Etana, Chris Martin, Marcia Barrett (Boney M), Byron Lee’s Dragonaires and Damian Marley. Jamaica Jazz & Blues 2012 is not one to be missed.

Diamond Sponsor

As the anticipation for the event heightens, the hoteliers in the surrounding areas are sharing in the festival’s success. The Iberostar Hotel has been a sponsor of the Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival for the last five years. According to the hotel’s director of sales, Kerry-Ann Casserly, Iberostar is the only hotel that signed up this year to be part of the newly added ‘Diamond Sponsorship.’ She said, “We are the only Diamond sponsor as a hotel. We felt that as a part of Jamaica’s 50th celebrations we wanted to give a lot more this year.” The sponsorship deal is doing well with the hotel, which is completely booked out.

According to Casserly, the hotel has been booked out for the upcoming weekend for the last two months. This means that over 200 rooms will be filled at the Iberostar, mostly by locals or persons from the Jamaican diaspora, during Jazz & Blues. Casserly further noted that while during the festival the hotel is usually booked to capacity each year at this time, for 2012 the rooms were booked out much faster.

“Yes, this has been one of the fastest that we’ve booked for the festival, and clearly, with such an artiste like Celine that would be expected,” she said.

The hotel will also be hosting a number of celebrities for the weekend.

Speaking with The Sunday Gleaner, chairman and executive producer of the festival, Walter Elmore, confirmed that hoteliers are enjoying the festival weekend. He said, “Most of the hotels are completely sold out such as Holiday Inn, Iberostar, Riu, Rose Hall Resorts, Hilton, Half Moon, Sunset Beach Resort, Coyaba, Gran Bahia Principe. Going from Freeport to Runaway Bay, the hotels, if they aren’t booked out yet, are going fast.” While he admits this is usual for the festival, the announcement of singer Celine Dion being added to the show seemed to have sold the rooms even quicker.

According to Elmore, the ticket sales for the festival have also been going well, especially within the last week.