The Savannah Music Festival will celebrate its 26th year starting next week when its musician-packed, 17-day program begins, and its executive director anticipates another record year.
Giving a brief update at a Friday board meeting of Visit Savannah, Executive Director Rob Gibson said tickets had already exceeded the $1 million mark.
Gibson said attendees during the 2014 festival bought roughly 1,700 airline tickets and booked more than 12,800 hotel rooms, putting the festival second only to the Rock ‘n Roll Marathon in terms of impact on Savannah’s hotel occupancy.
This year, he said, he hopes they may be able to exceed 2,000 airline tickets and a similar increase in number of hotel rooms.
“What we want to do is put Savannah on display,” Gibson said.
Gibson said he would also like to survey attendees to gauge how the festival affects local restaurants and retailers downtown.
For the first time this year, he said, the festival is going to include opera with two 50-minute performances playing at the Lucas Theatre on March 20 and March 22.
He said for those normally put off by the genre, these were two relatively short performances to try out.
“One’s a comedy and the other a tragedy ... both will take less time than going to see a showing of ‘American Sniper,’” he joked.