If your Christmas wish list included the music lineup for the 2026 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, you’re in luck.
Producers of the festival revealed on social media that they’ll release the roster for next year’s event on Thursday, Dec. 11.
That’s more than a month earlier than Jazz Fest’s typical mid-January roster rollout.
The 2026 Jazz Fest will consist of two four-day weekends starting on Thursday, from April 23-26 and April 30-May 3.
This won’t be the first time the festival has made some sort of talent announcement in December, but it is definitely sooner than usual.
Speculation about who will be on the list typically ramps up right after New Year’s Day. This year’s Dec. 11 release will head off much of that speculation — and possibly result in Jazz Fest tickets turning up in Christmas stockings.
Who might be on roster?
Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, who delivered a well-received, innovative set at the 2018 Jazz Fest, is on tour this spring. A tour poster listing his upcoming shows has a blurred out date listed for April 26, right after an April 24 stop in Houston. That hidden date is almost certainly a Jazz Fest appearance on the first Sunday.
Rod Stewart, a veteran of the 2018 Jazz Fest, is touring the nation’s south-central region in mid-April before a run of Las Vegas shows in May. He’ll be in Arkansas on April 22 and Oklahoma on April 24, meaning he could appear on the main Jazz Fest stage the first Saturday or Sunday.
Kentucky-born Tyler Childers, who sold out the Smoothie King Center in April with his country/bluegrass hybrid, kicks off a tour in Europe in March. The full American leg of the tour doesn’t start until June 4 in Birmingham, Alabama. But he has also announced a stand-alone show in Dallas on April 23, which could very well be a warm-up date before he heads to the Fair Grounds.
The latest leg of Bob Dylan’s tour includes two Louisiana dates between 2026 Jazz Fest weekends: April 27 in Baton Rouge and April 28 in Shreveport. But that might be the extent of his Louisiana appearances; his tour is slated to end in Texas on May 1. He previously performed at the festival in 1993, at the Fair Grounds and at a Jazz Fest evening concert at the Municipal Auditorium in 2003, and again at the Fair Grounds in 2006 for the first Jazz Fest after Hurricane Katrina.
If the festival follows its blueprint of recent years, expect a major pop act, another classic rock act or two, some younger rock bands, a couple of big-name rappers and R&B singers, and the hundreds of Louisiana artists that give the festival its flavor.
This story has been updated to correct the number of times Bob Dylan has performed at Jazz Fest.
