The JAMIACA Jazz and Blues Festival gets under way tonight and as is customary, the festival uses technology to its best advantage for the three-day event.

In addition to using technology for the lights, sound and screens, the festival and its partners Flow use technology for security, Internet access and even for monetary transactions!

Let's start with the screens. The festival breaks its own record with 124 active LED video panels, the most ever used at the Trelawny stadium. The screens will provide image magnification and enhancements to add to the mood of the stage performances. The LEDs are bright, brilliant and easy to see from a distance, even in the early evening before the sun as set. The stage screens are supported by a couple of other screens in the venue. Large screens will appear on the field, but smaller plasma screens will be located in several sponsor booths as well.

Back to the stage, the performer will bathe in light! For a festival first, there were over 100 moving lights supported by 48 projection fixtures, all programmed to run automatically.

An all-digital sound set-up is not new, but the festival takes it to a new level. To get the perfect sound, everywhere in the venue, microphones were set up at multiple locations around the stadium.

perfect time alignment

Based on the feedback, the whole audio system was tweaked to ensure perfect time alignment. Time alignment is just a fancy way of saying that there is no sound delay or 'slap back' that can occur in large venues or where there is lots of concrete. The event team has installed multiple delay stacks that are tuned to carry the music at the same speed of the air. So whether you're under the stage, on the field or 340 feet away in the stands, all you'll her is crisp, clear sound with no echo.

Of course, a show is no fun if you can't buy food, drinks and merchandise. Cash is king, but thanks to phone lines and highspeed Internet on property, most vendors will accept debit/creditcard transactions. For the few that still need cash (like the guy that sells the jazz chair), there is an ATM on site from Scotia.

With that kind of money, security is always a concern, so the police post on site is equipped with a mix of communications technologies, including radios, phones and Internet access. And, only patrons with bar coded tickets can enter the turnstiles, without exception. So you have your money, food and drink, kicked back in you portable jazz chair and watching the amazing show. Don't you want to send a tweet pic to your friend and say, "eat your heart out, I'm here and you're not?" Do it. With Flow Unplugged, free Wi-Fi is all over the stadium. Facebook updates? No problem. Foursquare check-ins? A cinch. BBM messaging? Take it Wi-Fi and avoid network congestion.

But, if sadly you can't make it to the festival, you can kick back at home and watch the live stream from the official website. In person is better, but in this case, technology can bring the music home to you.

Tech Glitch: Andre asks, "I need mobile Internet. Are the new Mi-Fi devices I see advertised a practical option?"

Tech Fix: Mi-Fi is so much better than the dongles previously available, if only because they allow you to connect multiple devices to the Internet connection. They are lightweight, portable, have a long battery life and in many areas provide great high-speed service.