The Associated Press reports that the Essence Festival will be returning to New Orleans:
The Essence Music Festival, relocated to Houston after Hurricane Katrina, is on its way back to New Orleans.
Essence will return to New Orleans for the next three years under new deal struck Monday that includes more marketing money from the state for the nation’s pre-eminent celebration of contemporary urban music.
In reaching a deal with magazine publisher Essence Communications Inc., which owns the festival, the New Orleans tourism industry beat out Houston, which tried to keep the festival after hosting it in 2006. The festival was moved to Houston when it wasn’t clear that the Superdome and Ernest N. Morial Convention Center would be ready in time to stage the annual Fourth of July weekend event.
Organizers complained about Houston’s version of the event, which took place at the Reliant Complex. The Chronicle editorial board responded by lecturing the organizers that Houston deserved to host the festival for another year. They’re probably taking this lack of appreciation of Houston’s world-classness pretty hard.
UPDATE (10-25-2006): The Chronicle posts their own coverage today.
