The Festival
One of Holland’s unique and historic festivals is The North Sea Jazz Festival. The first festival took place in 1976 and the annual celebration continues until today.  During the first festival that happens in the Netherlands Congresgebouw in The Hague, various known artists like Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie are just a few of the three hundred artists that render a performance in the then six venues and around nine thousand spectators.
After a few years, the festival has become known internationally and the then six venues became fifteen, and the then 300 artists are now thirteen hundred and the audience has widely grown into between sixty-five to seventy-thousand. With its popularity, the festival has found its new home in 2006 and that is in Ahoy Rotterdam.
What made the festival known is its ability to highlight different musical genres under one roof for three days including the traditional New Orleans Jazz, swing, free jazz, fusion, avant-garde jazz, and electronic jazz. Other genres like blues, gospel, funk, soul, R&B, hip-hop, world beat, and Latin are also included during the festival. In the coming 2010 festival, the event happens in July 9, 10 and 11, 2010.
Getting there and ticket prices
Getting to the place where The North Sea Jazz is happening is possible in different ways including bike, taxi, Subway, Car, and Night Train.
Residents of Ahoy Rotterdam and nearby cities can easily reach the area if they chose to be on their bikes because Ahoy has a free, supervised bike garage available.
Spectators who choose to hail a taxicab can easily have it done in the taxi stand in front of Ahoy.
Those chose to take the subway with over 30 bus lines; there is an extended night schedule until 3:30 AM especially for the North Sea Jazz Festival
The night train on the other hand can be a choice of transportation toward Ahoy. RET metroline also have extra service at Friday and Saturday night between Zuidplein and Rotterdam Central Station.