Monterey Jazz Festival (MJF69)

Dates, times, gates

The 69th Monterey Jazz Festival runs Friday 25, Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September 2026 at the Monterey County Fair & Event Center, 2000 Fairground Road, Monterey CA 93940.

Gates open at 3pm on Friday and at 11am on Saturday and Sunday. Music runs late all three days: the last sets start at 9pm on each of Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

First music is at 3:30pm Friday, midday Saturday and 11:15am Sunday — so on Saturday and Sunday the gates open an hour or so before anything starts, and on Friday only half an hour before.

Seating chart and stages

Six stages carry the festival, and they divide into two zones that your ticket decides between. The Arena holds the Jimmy Lyons Stage, a 5,400-seat outdoor venue at the east end of the fairgrounds, and it is where the headline acts play. The Grounds hold the other five: the Ray Drummond West End Stage, the Pacific Jazz Café, the Tim Jackson Garden Stage, the Courtyard Stage and the Monterey Room.

Arena seating is assigned, not general admission — your ticket names a seat. It sells in three grades: arena Lawn, arena sectional, and side bleacher, in ascending price order.

The festival does not publish a numbered Arena seating chart. It names the three grades and prices them, but nothing on its site maps which sections fall into which grade, so if a particular sightline matters, the seat map in the Etix checkout is the only place that shows it before you buy.

Parking at the Fairgrounds

Fairgrounds parking is sold out for 2026. That is the festival's own statement, not an inference from demand, and it changes how everyone else on this page gets there.

A limited number of ADA parking spaces are on Fairground Road, first-come first-served. ADA seating is arranged through ticketing or on 831-308-4653, and hearing devices are free at Patron Services against a deposit of valid ID.

There is no published rideshare or private-car drop-off point. If you are being dropped off, the festival does not say where — which, with on-site parking gone, is the one logistical gap left in its own guidance.

Getting there and shuttles

With Fairgrounds parking sold out, the park-and-ride at Monterey Peninsula College is the festival's answer for anyone driving. Monterey-Salinas Transit runs shuttles between the MPC lots and the festival roughly every 15 minutes during festival hours.

MPC parking passes are sold online only up to 24 September. From Friday 25 to Sunday 27 September you buy them on site instead, at the MPC Lot A shuttle tent at the intersection of Via Lavandera and the Lot A bus stop.

If you bought a pass in advance, take it to that same shuttle tent and exchange it for a hand stamp — the stamp, not the pass, is what boards the shuttle. Worth knowing before you queue at the wrong place.

The festival does not publish a price for the MPC parking pass, or a separate fare for the shuttle. It publishes a shuttle map and timetable but no first and last run in plain text, so if you are planning around the last shuttle out after a 9pm set, check that map on the day.

Wristband and ticket pickup

Tickets are electronic. Three-day packages were released on 4 September; single-day tickets release 21 days before the date on them. Either can be printed at home or carried on a phone.

The box office is at 2000 Fairground Road and opens before the festival does: 10am to 5pm on Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24 September, 10am to 9pm on Friday 25 and Saturday 26, and 10am to 8pm on Sunday 27.

Re-entry works on a wristband. Your ticket admits you once; the wristband is what lets you back in. Lose the wristband and you buy another ticket — worth knowing before you take it off at the end of a long afternoon.

Grounds map

The festival publishes a 2026 grounds map — the MJF69 Fairgrounds Map, as an image and a PDF, both linked from its Festival Map page. It is the authority on where the six stages, the gates, food, merchandise and Patron Services sit.

This page does not reproduce the layout in words. The map is redrawn each year and the gate arrangement has changed between editions, so describing it from a previous year's version is exactly the error that makes a map page worth less than the map.

Ticket prices and what each pass includes

Single-day tickets come in three tiers, and the gap between them is not just seat quality. Arena is $110 on Friday and $215 on Saturday or Sunday, and buys an assigned seat for the Jimmy Lyons Stage plus access to everything on the Grounds stages that day. Arena Lawn is $75 Friday and $135 Saturday or Sunday. Grounds is $65 Friday and $90 Saturday or Sunday.

Full-weekend packages are the other way in. A Grounds package is $230 and covers around 60 performances across the four Grounds stages. Arena packages begin at $325 for lawn seating and $465 and up for sectional and side-bleacher seats, and include a reserved seat at each of the 13 Jimmy Lyons Stage shows as well as the Grounds stages.

The distinction that catches people: a Grounds ticket does not get you into the Arena. The headline acts on the Jimmy Lyons Stage — the Hancock and Carter duo, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra — are Arena shows. If those are why you are coming, Grounds is the wrong ticket at any price. If you are happy to graze five other stages all day, it is much the better value.

Premier Club is an add-on rather than a ticket — $395 for the weekend, on top of an Arena or Grounds purchase, for a furnished area with Arena simulcasts, private restrooms and patio seating. It is sold out for 2026.

Children are handled differently by zone. In the Arena everyone needs a ticket, infants included. On the Grounds, under-2s are free and ages 2 to 12 need a youth ticket.

One note on prices quoted elsewhere: a $98–$500 range circulates on third-party event calendars and matches none of the festival's own published tiers, which run from $65 for a Friday Grounds ticket to $465 and up for a full-weekend Arena seat. Buy from the festival or its ticketing partner and check the figure there.

Hotels near the Fairgrounds

The festival publishes no room block, group rate or booking deadline for 2026. It features hotel partners — the Monterey Marriott on the waterfront and the Courtyard Sand City Monterey, which opened in January 2026 — and points at See Monterey and Hipcamp for campgrounds, RV parks and glamping across the county. None of those carries a festival rate.

That absence is worth knowing rather than working around: there is no discount code to hunt for, and late September is peak season on the Peninsula, so the usual advice about booking early applies with no festival-specific lever to pull.

Food, vendors, what to bring

Around seventy food and craft vendors trade across the grounds over the three days.

The site is cashless for everything the festival runs — tickets, parking and food vendors all take cards only. The bars are cashless too. The exceptions are the arts and crafts vendors and program sales, which do take cash, and there are ATMs inside the Fairgrounds if you need them.

What you cannot bring in is the part that costs people at the gate. No outside food, coolers, glass bottles, or containerized or alcoholic beverages. No lawn, beach or folding chairs — a real constraint at a festival where people expect to sit on grass all afternoon. No detachable-lens cameras, flash equipment or recording devices. No pets, and no strollers in the Arena or the indoor venues.

Two things you can bring, and they are the ones people get wrong in the cautious direction: one sealed plastic bottle of water per person is allowed, and picnic blankets are fine. Chairs are out, blankets are in.

Who is playing in 2026

The 2026 bill is led by Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter in what the festival bills as their first-ever duo performance — two musicians whose partnership goes back to Miles Davis's second great quintet, playing as a pair for the first time.

Also announced: the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and special guest Cécile McLorin Salvant, Meshell Ndegeocello, the Charles Lloyd Quartet, and the Ravi Coltrane Quartet.

The full stage-by-stage running order is published. Friday opens at 3:30pm with the USAF Commanders Jazz Ensemble and closes with the Ron Carter Foursight Quartet at 9pm; Saturday runs from a midday DownBeat Blindfold Test through the Ravi Coltrane Quartet at 3:45pm to Isaiah Collier at 8:45pm; Sunday opens with gospel at 11:15am and has the Charles Lloyd Quartet at 6pm. Set times for all six stages are on the festival's schedule page.