Lodging

The following hotels are holding rooms available for the Ragtime Jazz Festival:

Comfort Suites
801 Russell Street
Starkville, MS 39759
662-324-9595

Hampton Inn
700 Highway 12 East
Starkville, MS 39759
662-324-1333

Hilton Garden Inn
975 Highway 12 East
Starkville, MS 39759
662-615-9664

Be sure to ask for the "Ragtime" block of rooms. Rooms are reserved through March 15th.

Hotels suggested by the Chamber of Commerce may be found at the website of the Greater Starkville Development Partnership. Stay tuned for information about hotels in which rooms are reserved for Festival attendees.

Other Points of Interest

The Golden Triangle has some wonderful points of interest and some hidden treasures. A short drive to Tupelo offers Elvis's birthplace, great food, and an automobile museum. Columbus has fine dining, wonderful antebellum homes, and Tennessee Williams' birthplace.

Or, stay in Starkville, tour the Campus, and find out all that is happening at: http://www.starkville.org/otheract.php

Other area events/attractions can be found at the websites below:

http://www.tupelo.net/

http://www.columbus-ms.org/

Travel To The Festival

Travel By Air

The airport nearest to the Mississippi State University campus is the Golden Triangle Regional Airport (airport code = GTR) in Columbus, MS. Other accessible airports include those in Memphis, TN (3-hour drive); Jackson, MS (2-hour drive); Birmingham, AL (2.5-hour drive); Tupelo, MS (1 hour drive).

Travel By Car

The festival site is located in Starkville, MS on the campus of Mississippi State University.

Dining

A Ragtime Café will be set up for festival attendees in the Library. Perry Cafeteria is a short walk from the Library for lunches and several nice restaurants are only 10 minutes away from the Library. Starkville also has several nice restaurants ranging from "Fast Food" to "Fine Dining".

Greater Starkville Development Partnership offers a good Dining Guide.

Performers

For more information about our performers see the Festival Artists page. This page lists all of the performers, links to their websites and brief biographies. Many of the performers will conduct seminars, participate in panel discussions, perform mini-concerts, conduct tours of the Charles H. Templeton Sr. Music Museum as well as perform major evening concerts.

Seminars

Seminars will be conducted by many of the performers. Check the festival schedule for more information on seminars being offered.

Tours of the Charles H. Templeton, Sr. Music Museum, "The Business of Music".

In 2006 the Mississippi State University Libraries officially opened an exquisitely decorated Museum that houses memorabilia donated to Mississippi State by Charles H. Templeton, Sr., a local businessman.The collection contains over 200 music instruments dating from the late 1800's to the early 1900's. The museum contains a wide range of Edison player instruments, Victor Talking Machines, player pianos and other memorabilia. According to Dave Jasen, world-renowned musicologist, the collection represents the largest and most complete collection of Johnson talking machines in the world. The collection also contains over 22,000 pieces of sheet music from the same era. Templeton collected a large number of ragtime pieces of sheet music. The sheet music is being digitized and made available to music lovers online.

For more information about the online sheet music visit the the Charles H. Templeon, Sr. Music Museum website.

Finally, the collection also contains 15,000 recordings ranging from early wax cylinders of varying sizes, diamond discs, pathe discs, Edison records as well as Victor records. The collections represent the history of music during this time period.

More Information

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