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August saw the World Trade Center host its most successful Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival (CNSJ) to date with an all-star lineup on three stages that included bestselling artists from five decades and a multitude of music genres. This year’s edition of the biggest music festival in the Caribbean broke all previous attendance records with approximately 8,000 attendees on the first two nights of the event and a phenomenal 12,000 people for the final evening.
The party kicked off on Thursday, August 29th with a performance from the Dominican singer Juan Luis Guerra on the Sam Cooke stage. Friday’s lineup featured performances from Pitbull, Inner Circle, Earth, Wind & Fire, Maxwell and the Black Eyed Peas. On Saturday, the crowd was treated to an unforgettable show from Third World on the Sir Duke stage, followed by the Diva of all Divas, Mariah Carey and LA chart topper Maroon 5 on the Sam Cooke stage. Gladys Knight rocked the Celia stage showing us that age is no obstacle for the Empress of Soul before Nicky Jam closed the festival on the Sir Duke stage.
The event has been running since 2010 and each year thousands of festival goers from across the globe travel to Curaçao for this internationally renowned event. This year CNSJ had higher numbers of attendees from within the Caribbean region, helped in no small part by new direct flight links from Trinidad and Tobago with Caribbean Airlines. CHATA reported a 5% increase in August visitor arrivals this year which translated to 1,834 more visitors than in August 2018. Undoubtedly many of these extra guests were CNSJ festival-goers and the event continues to be the single biggest event on the island each year. Every hotel, Airbnb rental and guest house on the island was fully booked and bars and restaurants squeezed in extra chairs and tables to cater for everybody. Next year CNSJ festival will celebrate its 10th year and the scheduled opening of 3 new hotels on the island between now and then will provide a welcome 800 to 900 extra guest rooms.
The weeks before and after the festival were also busy for business with conference organisers taking advantage of the increased traffic to the island and hosting events in the same time period. The Remote Work Works event, Curaçao Tech Meetups and the CINEX Smart Investment Summit all benefitted from strategic timing in close proximity to the festival.
Over the years, CNSJ has seen headline performances from artists including Prince, Chaka Khan, Lenny Kravitz, Christina Aguilera, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys and Carlos Santana. The event is managed by Mojo events in the Netherlands and is an offshoot of the original North Sea Jazz festival which takes place in Rotterdam each year. CNSJ is the brainchild of Gregory Elias, financial adviser and founder of Fundashon Bon Intenshon which aims to put Curaçao in the spotlight internationally by supporting culture, sports, tourism and the arts. The festival is sponsored by Heineken, Curaçao Tourist Board and United Foundation.
