Iowa City Jazz Festival

Held over the fourth of July weekend each year, this festival is consistently one of the best and most well attended festivals of the year. Clinton street shuts down for the weekend and plays host to a couple delightful beer tents, an increasing number of food vendors and plenty of random vendors with everything from phone deals to novelty shirts.
Throughout the day Jazz is played to get you in whatever mood you’d like to be in. Around 6 pm, the main stage starts hoppin’ and has, so I’m told my friends who are Jazz fans, some pretty big names. Regardless of whether or not they happen to be DJ Jazzy Jeff (The only Jazz person I know…), the music is excellent and makes for a nice chill evening. This past year, the food choices increased considerably and included a Caribbean spot, a number of BBQ places and the standards. In addition, if you’re in the mood for a calzone (which it appeared few people were), those are available too.
All in all, great stuff for all ages, very family friendly and overall — super chill. A great festival to check out where you’ll probably hear something you like — because seriously, what else do you have going on all 4^th of July weekend!

The Iowa City Jazz Festival is a FREE festival held in the Pentacrest of University of Iowa for three days at the start of July each year.
I attended in 2012 & 2013 and both years had a good time. Even despite it being a free event the bands are good and the sound/​lighting are well engineered.
Many younger (presumably students) people attend which adds a little more ‘buzz’ to the festival. The festival has been going strong since 1991 when it was founded. Suitable for the whole family, if you’re in the area I would attend but probably would not ‘fly-​in’ for it…
A good effort by Iowa City and I hope that the festival continues for many years to come.