Dallas Childs, a veteran of Atlanta jazz festivals, wasn't happy Saturday, despite the Budweiser within easy reach of his chair parked in the middle of Woodruff Park.

"I would have preferred Piedmont Park," Childs said, referring to the previous location for the Memorial Day weekend Atlanta Jazz Festival. "I'll come all three days [of the festival], but I'm not totally happy. If they have it here next year ... I won't come back."

Childs, 43, and his buddy, jazz festival first-timer John Murray, set up about an hour before the music began at 2 p.m., with a clear view of the stage on the other side of Auburn Avenue.

Childs, with his bare feet propped up on a cooler, was disappointed that the crowds were smaller, shade was at a premium and grilling was no longer allowed.

Other fans, too, weren't happy with leaving Piedmont.

"People would cook out, and pitch tents to stay out of the sun, but we can't do that here," said Stacey Taylor of Stone Mountain, who has attended the festival for the past 21 years.

Taylor was sitting in Woodruff in a folding chair with a sun shade on top, listening to the Sandtown Middle School Jazz Band.

Festival hours were shorter —- this year 2-8 p.m. each day as opposed to 11 a.m.-10 p.m. last year. There were fewer, lesser-known performers.

The 31-year-old Jazz Festival attracted more than 200,000 people to Piedmont Park over three days last year. But this year, because of space constraints at Woodruff, attendance is limited to 49,000 total.

And Childs doubts those numbers will come.

"When they [potential festival-goers] see how it's set up, they're going to be frustrated," he said.

This is the second of five major events to convene since they were all banished from Piedmont Park to protect the park's drought-stressed lawn.

Booths ringed the 3.3-acre Woodruff Park on Peachtree at Five Points. Vendors offered purses and sunglasses, fake eyelashes and a chance to register to vote. Water and beer both cost $4, while a soda was $3.

There was plenty of room to move around in the park, even though the venue was much smaller. Saturday's lineup started with the youth jazz band from a middle school in southwest Atlanta and included performers Genetic Drift, Heather Johnson, Rua 6 and Bernard Linnette featuring Charito.

Randal Jenkins followed his routine for 18 previous Atlanta Jazz Festivals. His folding chair was on the front row at the foot of the stage while the youth jazz band played Saturday afternoon, but his perch was on a stretch of asphalt, Auburn Avenue, instead of a patch of green.

"It's different, it's smaller, but it seems OK to me," said Jenkins, 58, a former New York jazzman.

But just a few yards behind him, Wayne and Emilia Dacosta of Peachtree City debated whether they approved of the new location.

"The other one was a little better," Wayne Dacosta said.

"That would be an understatement," his wife said.

Dacosta conceded it was "a little weird" to be listening to jazz from a chair perched on the edge of the sidewalk at Auburn Avenue.

Would they stay until the last performance Saturday by Serenata Band?

"Probably not," said Wayne Decosta. "We'll probably go find a jazz club somewhere."