After taking the Monterey Jazz Festival to YouTube in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, the festival returned to the Monterey County Fairgrounds in 2021 to the excitement of fans. Demand for tickets was so high, the festival sold out two months in advance. That year the nonprofit recorded a record $1.8 million surplus, with another year of revenue exceeding expenses by $277,500 in 2022.
Since then the organization has seen at least two years of deficits – in 2023 the festival was in the hole by nearly $466,000 and in 2024 it was down by more than $733,000, according to IRS records. It mirrored a time of transition, with longtime artistic director Tim Jackson retiring in 2023, followed by the sudden exit of his successor Darin Atwater in late 2024.
“Last year we were rebuilding, this year we’re doing great,” says Managing Director Bobbie Young of the three-day festival, which opens Friday, Sept. 25, adding that by mid-September, ticket sales were already ahead of where they were last year. Donations are running above totals from the previous several years, she says.
“We are seeing a growth in donations, in our ticket sales, a growth in interest and on social media,” Young says. They’ve advertised heavily on social media channels this year, where younger viewers can be found.
Realizing festival acts can “skew a little older on occasion,” Young says they continue to invite acts that will appeal to a younger audience and even a broader one. At this year’s festival bestselling author Amy Tan is paired with successful jazz pianist Joey Alexander, 23, for a reading of Tan’s The Backyard Bird Chronicles.