Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival

The festival began in 1967 as the University of Idaho Jazz Festival, a single-day event with fifteen student groups and one guest artist. Lionel Hampton first played it in 1984, and the following year the university renamed it in his honor — the only jazz festival named for a musician at his own request in this way, and the anchor of the university's Lionel Hampton School of Music. The 60th edition is scheduled for April 14-17, 2027.

Its scale is educational first: hundreds of student ensembles perform across three days of adjudicated sessions, supported by close to a hundred workshops, clinics and exhibits, with headliners running Meet the Artist sessions for students. On top of that sits a public evening concert series in the Administration Building Auditorium and the ICCU Arena, closing with Hamp's Gala. The 2026 lineup included Jazzmeia Horn, Tito Puente Jr., Warren Wolf and the Lionel Hampton Big Band.