We had a good time at the Boquete Jazz and Blues festival on Sunday.

I made a short video of it below.

But it wasn’t nearly as good as last year.

Maybe because it was so very hot for the first couple of hours this year.  But I think the bigger factor was the line up.

Differences from Last Year

Last year, on Sunday, there more blues performers and the performers were much higher energy.   The crowd was higher energy.  More people were wearing mardi-gras beads and crazy hats.

Of course, we were also missing Lil Ed and the Blue Imperials.   Lil Ed brings his own very enthusiastic head-dress-wearing crowd.  But there seemed to be more acts too.

(You can see photos of the 2015 Boquete Jazz & Blues festival here.)  

Also missing was face painting and homemade gelato ice cream.

2016 Good things

However, there was fabulous pizza baked in a portable wood-fired oven.  The ice cream was good, but it wasn’t as good as last year’s.   I loved this year’s misters that lightly spayed water on you. They didn’t have those last year, that I remember.  Did I mention it was so very hot this year.

I enjoyed Tommy Castro very much.  He is more R&B than Blues, but his is undoubtedly good. But Sunday’s performers weren’t the same level of energy and diversity of performers as last year.

Next year, I am will check out the line up more before shelling out the money.  I go for the blues, not the jazz.  So a good blues line up is critical for me.

2017 Boquete Jazz & Blues Festival

Next year’s festival will be from February 9 – 12, 2017.

Partial Line Up for 2017 Festival

So far the line up looks promising

According to the Boquete Jazz and Blues website, this is the line up.

• Lowrider Band.  An electric brew of Latin, R&B, Latin, and Funk
• Caroline Wonderland.  Reigning Queen of Austin’s Blues, sparks fire on guitar
• Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers.  Taking Traditional zydeco sounds to a new level, infusing blues, soul & funk
• Maria Rivas. Her exotic style & Latin jazz roots make her a unique voice

Regular priced tickets go on sale on April 1, 2016.

I wish they would dedicate Sunday to Blues and Saturday to Jazz.  I would sign up for next year right now, if I knew I could be listening to almost all Blues on the day I chose.  

Ticket Discount for Next Year

For a short time, 2017 Boquete Jazz & Blues Festival tickets are for sale online at a discount.  But again, only for a short window of time.

From 
February 28th 2016, at 6pm until March 2, 2016 at midnight!

You can buy your tickets here. 

The discounted price is $117, which gets you admission for both Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately, this early out you cannot buy a ticket for Sat or Sunday.  You must buy it for both.

To give you an idea of the savings.  One day tickets for 2016 were $74.  I think the 2 day tickets were $169.

I am not sure if I will buy them early or not.   I would have to commit to going for both days.  Which could be fun, but I think I would have to leave my kids at home.   I don’t think they would go for it, at least not happily.

Did you go this year?  What did you think?