#1 ELBJAZZ
Dear ELBJAZZ community,
We have great news: ELBJAZZ is back! The popular festival in Hamburg’s harbor will return in 2026 – with fresh energy, new ideas, and a strong line-up! ELBJAZZ 2026 will take place on July 10 & 11, 2026. The first acts have already been confirmed. Among them is Jamie Cullum, one of our dream headliners, who, with his stylistic openness and musical curiosity, symbolizes what ELBJAZZ is all about.
Also confirmed are José James, who will perform Marvin Gaye’s classic album “I Want You” on stage together with singer China Moses, British psychedelic soul singer-songwriter Greentea Peng, Herbert & Momoko, the joint project of Matthew Herbert and Momoko Gill, and the NDR Big Band, which will also be back for the upcoming edition and will present a program together with John Beasley this year to mark the 100th birthday of Miles Davis! The Elbphilharmonie Specials already promise to be special highlights: the first confirmation is British soul singer Joss Stone – a second well-known act will be announced shortly!
Further acts for ELBJAZZ 2026 are in the planning stage and will be announced in due course.
General advance sales start on Wednesday, November 19, 2025, at 11:00 a.m.
Previous ticket holders have a right of first refusal for grandstand seats and Elbphilharmonie concerts starting on Monday, November 17, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. at tickets.elbjazz.de!
Back to the roots: The new old ELBJAZZ
ELBJAZZ 2026 will return to its roots. The program will once again reflect the original festival concept: around 30 acts will represent jazz and related genres in all their breadth and diversity. This means that many long-time fans are sure to find something to their liking in the new line-up.
After taking a break in 2025 due to a lack of availability of attractive jazz headliners, we have deliberately replanned and decided to link ELBJAZZ 2026 with other major European jazz festivals. The festival will now take place on July 10 & 11, 2026 – a time when many international jazz artists are already touring Europe, which significantly shortens their journey to Hamburg. We also hope that the new date will bring more stable weather conditions for an even better festival experience on the Elbe!
Changes to festival venues
ELBJAZZ stands for extraordinary venues along the Elbe with a unique harbor panorama. The Blohm+Voss site, as the festival center, continues to form the heart with the stages Am Helgen, the Schiffbauhalle, and the Main Stage, for which exclusive seats on a partially covered grandstand will also be available for the first time. The grandstand seats with seat reservations are available as a combination ticket for both festival days.
While St. Katharinen Church will unfortunately no longer be a festival location, the Elbphilharmonie will remain a venue – but in a new form. In the future, renowned acts will play full-length concerts here in the Grand Hall. These concerts are no longer automatically included in the festival ticket, but can also be booked individually without an ELBJAZZ ticket. However, ELBJAZZ ticket holders have a special advance purchase right when purchasing tickets for the Elbphilharmonie concerts.
This creates more flexibility and, at the same time, the opportunity to offer a truly top-class program at the Elbphilharmonie that rounds off the festival program with international top stars.
Behind the scenes
The previous shareholder constellation consisting of FKP Scorpio Konzertproduktionen GmbH, Inferno Events GmbH & Co. KG, Karsten Jahnke Konzertdirektion GmbH, and ELBJAZZ co-founder Nina Sauer has been reorganized: Karsten Jahnke Konzertdirektion GmbH is the new majority shareholder of ELBJAZZ GmbH and will therefore be solely responsible for all programmatic and business matters relating to ELBJAZZ in the future, while Nina Sauer will remain involved as an advisory shareholder. The previous management team consisting of Folkert Koopmans (FKP Scorpio Konzertproduktionen GmbH) and Karsten Jahnke (Karsten Jahnke Konzertdirektion GmbH) will be replaced by Ben Mitha, CEO of Karsten Jahnke Konzertdirektion. We would like to take this opportunity to express our special thanks to Folkert Koopmans and Alexander Schulz and their respective teams for their outstanding cooperation over the past years!
Tickets now available
Tickets for ELBJAZZ 2026 and the Elbphilharmonie concerts are now available at tickets.elbjazz.de. Due to cost increases in almost all areas (production, infrastructure, energy, fees), we are unfortunately forced to raise prices slightly in order to realize a festival that continues to meet our quality standards and those of the ELBJAZZ community.
We look forward to celebrating the fantastic program of ELBJAZZ 2026 with you!
ELBJAZZ is subsidized by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
