A PARADE of musicians blowing up a storm Bourbon Street-style will get festivities under way in the 2008 Noosa Jazz Festival and, with the renovation of Hastings Street just about complete, organisers say it will be the biggest yet.

The Noosa Jazz Festival, from September 4 to 7, will have more than 170 individual artists across a range of jazz styles.

USM Events Festival Director Rod Lockwood said this was year two in a five-year plan to make it the premiere jazz event in Australia.

"This year we've got the two parks going for the first time, so there are bookends at either end of Hastings Street. We've got a larger Blues festival happening on the North Shore, and next year we want to start bringing in some really big international acts," Mr Lockwood said.

"So within five years we want to have Noosa and the whole Sunshine Coast buzzing about the festival."

Mr Lockwood said it had been a difficult year for tourism, but they hoped to match the 20,000 attendance of last year's event, and the jewel in the crown, a renovated Hastings Street, might be the catalyst to grow numbers.

Last year's festival reached out to a younger audience when Cat Empire brought its fusion of rock and jazz to Noosa, and Mr Lockwood said the plan was to appeal to music lovers of all ages.

"We want to make sure that traditional New Orleans-style jazz always underpins the event, we don't want the event to lose its roots. We want to add to that and make it much more appealing."

Jazz lovers can purchase one, two and three-day passes which allow entry into all four major arenas.

Festival goers will be able to see first hand the results of four and a half years of planning, a shade over $7.5 million from traders' hip pockets and little more than a year in construction time with the Hastings Street overhaul nearly complete.

Hastings Street Traders Association President Jim Berardo said he was proud of the results.