The JazzReggae Festival at UCLA

My first time! We wish they had a beer garden. However, aside from that it is a beautiful day out. The setting and scale is lovely.
A few notes that we missed earlier on:
-Parking is pre-paid, bring your Car Plate number to the Kiosk and make your permit selection or use the mobile app.
-Bring a blanket to sit on.
-No shade in the midfield, plan your sunscreen, hat, layers...
We ate before, good thing the vending lines are longish. Thanks for the tickets Yelp, LA.

I've been to this festival during Memorial Day weekend 2 years in a row and I'm considering making this a yearly tradition. It's just a wonderful and fun setting to be out in the sunshine enjoying food, drinks and listening to great music with my girlfriend & friends! The first year we saw acts such as Gary Clark Jr., Selah Sue (dope female artist), Thundercat and the Roots (My favorite hip hop group). This year we were fortunate enough to see SantiGold, Common, Grouch & Eligh (killed it), and Jhene Aiko (love her). I cant wait for next year to hopefully catch both days of the event (Jam Day and Reggae Day). If your into festivals and enjoy fun activities outside in southern sunny California then this is definitely an event you don't want to miss. Make sure to bring a blanket and cash!


OOOOO
5 out of 5 Afros

The 25th anniversery for the Jazz Reggae festival was nothing but a GOOD TIME!
This festival is great for the whole familiy!
They have quite an expansive variety of food vendors, and clothing vendors.
I gave the Jamacain food place a shot, being that it was a Raggai Festival.
There are no tables or chairs. It's strictly a picnic so you eat your food on the grass.
I love the idea of having a picnic listening to LIVE Jazz/Reggae music, how often do you get to do that.
AND to top it off, this weekend on Sunday The Roots were headlining! They were the BEST!
I cant wait to go again next year!

I had no plans of being at this event - I am grateful for being given the opportunity to experience this festival, once again. I hadn't been here since I was younger. Back then it was a annual event my family and I would attend. That was when it was legal to bring in whatever you like. Not to mention ticket prices were reasonable. All that aside, I had a wonderful time at the fest this past Memorial Day.

My favorite artist that performed is Nneka. This beautiful, talented, Nigerian woman is the truth. She had me moving and grooving with happiness flowing through me. For your research purposes please see: http://www.nnekaworld.com/us/home . Check her out.

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The flyer reads that Cham performed. I don't even remember that. I wonder if I caught him and didn't know it or if I was just preoccupied with the eye candy and great company surrounding the tiny spot I occupied on the field. There was so much going on. Though I didn't spend too much time with the vendor's or get any food - None of that was necessary. Between people watching, great company, and the music - a gay time was had by all.

I just may go next year.

I quite enjoyed my day!!!

There's nothing better than a sunny and breezy, but not too hot day in Southern California. And let me tell you temperature at this sort of shindig was pretty important. There are no trees on the intramural field, so it could have been pretty unbearable.

I feel like if I didnt have such a good conversationalist buddy to go with I might have gotten bored. We got there early walked around, plonked on the grass and just enjoyed the weather and background music. If i had been more inclined I might have snuck to the front to dance...but I was so relaxed and in good state of mind I decided to stay where I was, cloud watching and talking. Perfect day.

The bands and people watching weren't bad either hahaha.

Wow, on their 25th anniversary and NOBODY has reviewed this festival??

All I can say is that this is one of the best music festivals I have ever been to. I love love love jazz and all the other genres of music it has influenced and this festival definitely brings light to all of it. HUGE names in music play at the festival every year. The best part is that this its all ran by STUDENTS OF UCLA! I bow to all of you!

Spend the day and soak up the sun. It is open field seating so it has a great picnic atmosphere with chill people enjoying the tunes.

The only suggestion I would have is to have a little more traditional jazz and reggae acts to show the roots of the music before branching out to what other amazing things it has influenced! Also for next year it would be a cool idea to get some LA food trucks out onto the field!

I was pretty excited to get my jazzreggae on, but this event was kind of lame for the following reasons:

-PARKING: if you don't frollock around the campus often, you're easily going to get lost. There were no signs anywhere around the campus guiding us where to find the park. We must've been lost for 15-20minutes trying to find the lot. Laaaaaame.

-DRY EVENT: no beer gardens!! Laaaaaaame.

-NO SHADE: it was blazing hot and there's a no umbrella policy and no trees to cool off. You're melting in the sun for a straight 6 hours on a nice day. Laaaaaaame.

-LONG FOOD TRUCK LINES: they had a decent variety of places to get food, but the lines took FOREVER. My friend was literally suffering from heat exhaustion and about to faint because of all the hot blazing sun. We stood in one long-ass line to find that they didn't even serve water with their food to stand in another even longer ass line to buy our bottled water. Laaaaaaaame.

-KID FRIENDLY: Some may disagree with me on this one, but I didn't realize this was going to be a family affair. Lots of little kids running around and playing. It was a little annoying because I prefer adult environments. I wouldn't expect Lupe Fiasco to be the first place parents would take their very young children. Laaaame.

-UCLA CUT THE MUSIC: as Lupe Fiasco was just beginning to sing his much inspired "Daydreaming", they cut the friggin music!! Are you f*cking kidding me?!? It's only 5 minutes after 6pm. Let the guy finish his song! In his failed attempt, he continued to sing without the speakers. I appreciated the enthusiasm, but that was the final straw to lamehood.

I think I'll stick to my Playboy Jazz Festival and reggae concerts outside of UCLA from now on. The environment is much more "chill" friendly if you hear what I'm saying.

I've been to jazzreggae fest for the past five years and it never fails to disappoint with good music, food, and vibes. It's definitely one of the more affordable music festivals at $35/day, $60/both days, or even free as a UCLA student! Which I was for the first 4 years of going to jazzreggae. ;)

It's the kind of outside music festival where you bring a blanket to sit on and enjoy the music. Or you can stand close to the stage when one of the headliners or your favorite artists are performing.

Every jazzreggae weekend has beautiful sunshine weather! Even this year when Saturday was cloudy, the sun came out on Sunday for the festival!

There are booths lining the sides of the inter mural field which you can buy cool trinkets, clothes, get free stuff, and FOOD.

Food I must say is one of the highlights of jazzreggae fest. Be ready with cash but sometimes vendors can accommodate card. The STRAWBERRY LEMONADE is the best I've ever had. Done.

My friends and I have been going to the JazzReggae Fest off and on for years, at one point we went four years in a row and prior to this last time we hadn't been in about 10 (man I feel old).

Since it was only my BFF and I this year we opted to go with the deluxe package that they offered, it's about $40 more than the regular ticket; however, it was well worth it. You have your own area with tables, catered lunch, a goodie bag, unlimited beverages, SHADE (which is a must because it can get really hot sitting out on the field) and the piece de la resistance your own set of port a potties! Not just any port a potties, deluxe ones with a sink and soap inside of it that is constantly being cleaned. The only downside of the deluxe section is that it is off to the side of the stage so you don't get to hear the music that well. The catered lunch they offered wasn't bad but we still tried out some of the food vendors and they were ok, nothing stood out to us that was amazing.

As with any kind of music festival everything is overpriced so be prepared for that. They had water filling stations which I think is awesome, you're not forced to pay $3 for a bottle of water, just bring your own container.

We'll go back again next year and most likely spend the money for deluxe because now that we got a taste of it, we'd rather shell out the money for comfort.

D-(Twitter log in.)
Yelp!*-Hey! if you re-tweet this about the JazzRaggae Fest, you could win 2 free tkts!
D-Holy crap! :::retweet:::retweet:::
Yelp!*-Hey you won!
D-:::heart subsides:::

So I unexpectedly won tkts to the JazzReggae Fest 2011.

Finally the big day arrives and The beau and I trek on over to the UCLA campus for the event. We got there early and the lot was near empty. People have their blankets laid out for the soulful stylings of Lee Fields and The Expressions who by the way is like James Brown. He has an awesome way of entertaining the crowd with his personality.
The Stepkids were more funk and soul that I had expected. Their matching outfits were in fact questionable but hey, they weren't shameful :-).
There's a stampede for a Swedish band named Little Dragon. A band that I didn't know existed but has managed to raise my eyebrow in interest. Talib Kweli unfortunately only performs two songs and exits the stage without warning.
Lupe Fiascos stage presence was electric to say the least. He loves his fans and showed it naturally. He engaged them. He even performed a song called "Scream" that you wont hear because its only performed live.
Like he said "If any of you like to executively produce your own movies on Youtube, you may wanna pull out your cameras and record this song. I only perform it live. Its called Scream."

There is a variety of food to choose from. You want Jamaican?Guyanese? Ethiopian? Pizza? What about Sno Cones the size of basketballs? Do you want you jamaican tri coloured clothing? Its there. Yes its all there.


I had fun. I found new music that I liked. If you're looking for a nice time out to listen to some new music, this is one of those places.