The Voodoo Experience took several steps backwards last weekend for the third year in a row, and in the eyes of several prominent festival figures, it couldn’t be better for it.

Chad Bower / WWLTV.com

Walter Wolfman Washington plays at the Preservation Hall Tent Saturday at Vooodoo.

Each year since the festival returned to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 there has been a concerted effort to step back from the festival’s modern-rock mindset and towards the roots of New Orleans music.

In 2006 it was Preservation Hall performer and owner Ben Jaffe who stepped up to the table, collaborating with Voodoo Experience producer and owner Stephen Rehage to bring the iconic jazz club from the heart of the French Quarter to the green fields of City Park.

In 2007 it was Clint Maedgen and his local band The New Orleans Bingo! Show, which features a vaudeville and burlesque act along with Maedgen’s scratchy voice and tunes, to secure a stage: the New Orleans Bingo! Parlour.

That now makes it four of the six stages at Voodoo totally focused on local music – an unheard of number just two years ago.

“You look at the schedule, and on paper it makes absolutely no sense,” Jaffe said. “Two years ago people thought it was nuts that we were at Voodoo. Now people are coming back looking for us to be here.”

Crowds who flocked to both stages last weekend were treated to several upgrades from last year, orchestrated by Jaffe and Maedgan. The Preservation Hall stage went from a closed-in tent with only one entrance to what now most resembles a canopy. That opened it up, Jaffe said, and also allowed passer-bys to get a glimpse inside. 

“I like watching the audience. That is what is so special to me,” Jaffe said Thursday, looking from a few yards away at the shell of his tent that would bristle with life throughout the weekend. “I like standing back here and watching from afar.”

On the other side of the festival, The New Orleans Bingo! Parlour transformed from a low-key tent to a full-blown circus act, complete with a bright red and yellow exterior and a trapeze. It matches Bingo! Show’s act, which draws from old vaudeville acts to complement vocalist/keyboardist Maedgan’s scratchy voice. To quote Maedgen, the tent is simply “jacked.”

Chad Bower / Eyewitness News

The New Orleans Bingo! Parlour stage at Voodoo.

“We really wanted the stage to look like a cabaret. We really want it to feel like our show,” said Ron Rona, member of the Bingo! Show. “If we had to come up with a physical representation of what our show is, we’d like to think it’d be this.”

The free-wheeling control that Maedgen and Jaffe have in the construction of their tents shows Rehage’s commitment to take the festival from a predominately rock-oriented event just ten years ago to a musical stew of various genres today.

For organizations that specialize in an art form now decades past its zenith, Jaffe says that kind of effort is essential, and that bands must seize opportunities to meet new audiences whenever they can.

“I hope, if anything, that this encourages bands and organizations like us to be a little bit more adventurous. To work a little harder to do things that maybe aren’t as easy and comfortable,” Jaffe said.

Rona said that through the efforts of inventive promotion through venues like Voodoo and by reaching out to the audience, big things can happen.

“Our goal is to have a spotlight on this thing that we’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of. To expose a part of New Orleans that people in Baton Rouge and Lafayette don’t get to see all the time,’ Rona said.

Chad Bower / WWLTV.com

Preservation Hall Tent at Voodoo this weekend.

But the producers of the smaller stages know that it’s not the frills and theatrics of the stages that draw in crowds. It’s not the artwork, not the advertisements, not the new, shiny tents.

It’s the music taken from a few steps back.

“To me, the most important thing about Preservation Hall is that our music remains relevant as things continue to change,” Jaffe said.

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that here.”