In the spring of 2026, Big Easy Entertainment was referred to The Barnett Hotel to assist with a specific and time-sensitive problem: Good Measure, the hotel’s music venue, had no live music programming in place for Jazz Fest. Only a few weeks away, Jazz Fest represented one of the most competitive and highest-profile periods in the New Orleans live music landscape. The Barnett would be at or near capacity with guests in town for live music, and one of the best intimate music venues in town was currently scheduled to be dark.
The compressed timeline required us to move quickly and lean on our greatest asset: relationships. Big Easy Entertainment founder James Martin is a working New Orleans musician with two decades of connections across the city’s music community.
We programmed lineups over both Jazz Fest weekends featuring Erica Falls, Sunpie Barnes, Soul Brass Band and other well regarded artists who fit the vibe of Good Measure and aligned with the music sensibilities of Jazz Fest visitors.
Following the success of the Jazz Fest performances, we approached The Barnett with a proposal for Big Easy Entertainment to program Good Measure on a sustained basis.
For Big Easy Entertainment, the opportunity represented an exciting expansion. After years of developing systems and relationships while providing live music for corporate events, weddings, and other private clients, this was our first opportunity to apply that infrastructure to sustained public venue programming.
For The Barnett, the objectives for audience growth and brand building were clear but nuanced. Live music programming needed to serve two audiences simultaneously: it had to be accessible enough to engage hotel guests and give them another reason to choose The Barnett on a future visit, while remaining compelling enough to make Good Measure a destination for discerning local audiences.
The branding challenge was another dimension. Two summers earlier, the iconic Ace Hotel and its revered Three Keys live music venue had become The Barnett and Good Measure. The building carried real cultural history with local audiences. The Barnett was a different stripe of boutique hotel than the Ace, and Good Measure needed its own identity.
We decided together to launch this new direction in the notoriously slow summer months of New Orleans. If we could gain any kind of traction in the summer months, we’d be poised to significantly build on that momentum in the busy Fall & Spring seasons.
“Stopped in for the first time since it was the Ace hotel, music and vibes were great…!”
— Raquel Diaz, Google review — September 2026
Big Easy Entertainment’s role begins with listening. Clients often understand the experience they want to create but may not know which artists, formats and operational decisions will bring it to life.
For Good Measure, Big Easy Entertainment founder James Martin and lead booking and sales associate Joel Jackson developed a programming philosophy centered on four decisions.
The program brought together artists and genres united by the spirit of New Orleans. Established performers appeared alongside developing acts, with room for jazz, soul, R&B, Latin music, folk traditions and performances that resisted easy categorization.
The connecting thread was not a single genre, but quality, authenticity and an identifiable relationship to the city’s creative community.
It would have been easier to select three reliable bands and assign each one a recurring Thursday, Friday or Saturday engagement. That approach could have filled the calendar efficiently, but it would not have created the sense of discovery required to excite local audiences and traveling music enthusiasts.
Instead, we developed a dynamic calendar of largely nonrepeating artists, generally allowing six to eight weeks before a performer returned.
The calendar was developed with New Orleans’ larger cultural schedule in mind.
During Satchmo SummerFest, for example, Good Measure did not need to reproduce the traditional jazz audiences had already heard throughout the day. It could instead offer complementary artists that festivalgoers might be excited to discover afterward.
During New Orleans Comic Con week, the calendar included CLOUDSAVE Presents: Mario Kart Live, an imaginative performance concept aligned with a different audience arriving in the city.
These were not isolated bookings. They were curatorial decisions designed to place Good Measure within the city’s broader event calendar.
Behind the scenes, we placed equal emphasis on the artist experience. Clear information, attentive communication, hospitality, transparency and consistent, prompt payment helped establish trust with the musicians participating in the program.
A venue does not build its reputation only with audiences. Artists talk to one another, and the way they are treated influences the quality, enthusiasm and long-term sustainability of a music program.
As the summer progressed, the results became visible inside the room.
On many performance nights, the lobby bar and venue remained relatively quiet before the show. As the starting time approached, audiences arrived specifically to hear the scheduled artist. Local music fans mixed with hotel guests, some of whom encountered performers they had not previously known.
People danced, listened attentively, gathered with friends and gave standing ovations. The photographs and videos captured what attendance figures alone could not: the energy created when the right artist, audience and room came together.
The momentum extended beyond the audience. International festival promoters attended performances. Local music writers and radio personalities visited the venue. Artists became increasingly interested in joining the calendar, and Big Easy Entertainment began receiving a steady stream of inquiries from performers hoping to appear at Good Measure.
Weekly cultural calendars also took notice. Performances received repeated, unsolicited inclusion from outlets and platforms including Gambit, The NOLA Collective and MusicNOLA504.
The developing energy could be felt throughout the hotel as staff became increasingly engaged with the calendar and the audiences it attracted. The music was becoming part of the atmosphere and identity of the property rather than remaining isolated inside a room that happened to contain a stage.
“The entertainment was fantastic. We caught the early restaurant duo and then the 9 piece band at night. Just great.”
— ChaseP_12, Tripadvisor review — August 2026
For the four-month period spanning June through September 2026, Big Easy Entertainment programmed 40 different bands across 47 concerts.
Some evenings naturally performed better than others, as they do in any sustained venue program. Collectively, however, the summer series demonstrated that ambitious, locally focused music programming could remain commercially viable during one of the most challenging periods of the New Orleans hospitality calendar.
The initial Jazz Fest assignment grew into a partnership, beginning in the summer months and was subsequently extended beyond its original term.
Some programming highlights:
Guest reviews also began reflecting the program’s central objectives: presenting Good Measure as a genuine music destination, creating a varied nightly experience and giving travelers another reason to return to The Barnett.
“The Italian restaurant and live music is the cherry on top… we would definitely come back to in the future.”
— David Grasso, Google review — July 2026
These results were achieved without attempting to reproduce the venue’s previous identity. Instead, the program began establishing a new relationship among Good Measure, New Orleans artists, local audiences and hotel guests.
Live music is one of the defining parts of a wedding in New Orleans. Whether you’rThe most meaningful result was not simply that the program proved commercially viable or that the partnership was extended. It was demonstrating that commercial success and authentic cultural investment could reinforce one another.
Artists were treated professionally. Local audiences were given compelling reasons to return. Hotel guests encountered music they might not otherwise have discovered. The hotel strengthened its relationship with the creative community surrounding it.
This type of programming requires listening, local knowledge, strong relationships, operational systems and a willingness to program with purpose.
Filling dates and building a scene are not the same thing.
