A Word from Executive Producer, Mike Jason

September 17, 2024

With just over 100 days until our second annual sailing of The Big Easy, we are thrilled to share that we are NEARLY SOLD OUT, with less than 15 cabins remaining! We can’t begin to explain how appreciative we are of all the partners, artists, friends, and of course guests who have helped us make this cruise such a special experience.

The team at StarVista Live has been working hard in preparing the schedule of events for our 2025 sailing. We officially have theme nights to share, which you’ll learn more about later on in the newsletter!

Plus, we’ve been scheduling artists into specific days, venues, and times. We now have the first 80 or so performances scheduled out and are looking to add another 20. In addition, we are planning all kinds of fun events, including cooking demonstrations with Chef Kevin Belton, artist Q&As, casino events, artist jam sessions, the T-shirt party, a pub crawl, and many more; while this is always the most fun part of what we do as the week starts to come together, there are also some challenges. For example, many of the musicians and artists onboard play or sit in with friends. This is just one of the very special features of the Big Easy Cruise, so it's important that our planning allows the artists enough schedule flexibility to comfortably sit in with their friends and fellow artists.

Another challenge is how best to utilize the ship, and we continually look for new venues throughout the ship to schedule performances or artist interactive events. Of course, our scheduling has to be coordinated with the artists, musicians, our Production Staff, and the ship to ensure the artists have had access to sound check as needed, the stages and lighting are in place, the audio is set up, and the ship staff is ready to deliver world class service. In fact, our Team pre-sails before the Big Easy Cruise to ensure all the production requirements will be met (there are 9 trucks worth of production equipment loaded in just for us!) and works closely with the ship department heads so that they understand our timing and can meet the artist and guest needs.

We want to spend as much time as possible worrying about the details before the cruise so that when we sail, it's all about the music and experience!