Tickets selling quickly for jazz festival

Kokomo. Photo/file

Ticket sales for the 59th National Jazz Festival are going well - with tickets for some concerts very popular, says the festival's director.

It's under a month until the five-day Easter festival begins on March 24. During the weekend punters can enjoy the Downtown Carnival, the Baycourt Concert Series and New Orleans-style TECT Jazz Village.

National Jazz Festival director Becks Chambers said: "This year there is a really good feeling about the festival, and tickets started flying out the door quite quickly after the launch.

"That's really great and it looks like we're going to sell out our opening night Komoko 25th Anniversary Concert with half of the tickets already sold. It's a really awesome start to the festival to have a local band headlining with a full house," she said.

The line-up of performers also includes Emma Pask and Darren Percival from The Voice Australia, and together for the first time were USA-UK connection Chris Cain and Roy Phillips.

Ms Chambers said the way ticket sales were tracking a number of other concerts were going to sell out, including the high-energy Hurricane Party down on the waterfront.

Ms Chambers said 25,000 brochures had been snapped up and more had to be printed because of the huge interest.

"We were also over-subscribed for the 39th National Youth Jazz Competition and were inundated with applications from school bands from all over the country."

Nine big bands, including one from Christchurch Boys' High, and three from Tauranga, would perform on Easter Saturday, and 17 combo bands on Good Friday - four more than last festival.

Ms Chambers said during the festival, some 50 bands would perform across 16 events.