Jimmy Buffett will headline the Andy Roddick Foundation’s 5th Annual Charity Gala on Saturday, December 4th at the Hilton in Austin, Texas. Buffett is a tennis fan and often goes to the US Open with his son Cameron.

Tables start at $10,000. Here are the levels:

Australian Open Club – $10,000
One table seating 10 guests. VIP area for Jimmy Buffett concert

French Open Club – $20,000
One preferred table seating ten guests. Stage left VIP area for concert

Wimbledon Club – $25,000
One preferred table seating ten guests. Stage right VIP area for concert. Publication of company logo in various places

US Open Club – $50,000
One premiere table seating ten guests. Stage front center for concert. First two tables sold at US Open level receive a meet and greet with Jimmy.

For more information on the gala, call 561-620-9449, email Foundation@AndyRoddick.com, or visit www.andyroddick.com.

Check out this great video below showcasing Jimmy’s visit to Paris last week.

The cameraman follows Jimmy around, starting with his arrival aboard his Falcon 900 private jet. Jimmy then joins the U.S. Air Forces in Europe Band for a private show at the US Embassy. The video concludes with the full performance of “One Particular Harbour” from the Olympia show. And in between segments Jimmy shows off his French.

As we tweeted out earlier today, Jimmy Buffett visited the campus of Southern Miss today to discuss a couple of projects he’s working on with the university:

After he and [school president Martha] Saunders had lunch in the Trent Lott Center, Saunders gave Buffett a tour of campus, and the two talked with students outside the Administration Building.

“I wanted to come back and see my old campus,” Buffett said. “It’s been a while. Some things have definitely changed, and some things haven’t.”

Buffett said he came through Hattiesburg on business, but he will be having some fun as well. “I’m on my way down to see the Saints game,” he said.

Buffett told the students he graduated from USM on the same day as President Saunders. “I have the program to prove it,” Saunders joked.

Before going into the Administration Building, Buffett said, “I’ve never seen the President’s office… but I’ve seen the dean’s office a few times.”

As Saunders and Buffett left the students, Buffett told them, “Y’all get back to class.”

Back in June Jimmy visited the university’s Gulf Coast Research Center. He had donated boats to them to help in the gulf oil spill cleanup.

Buffett with President Martha Saunders. Photo by Steve Rouse

Jimmy Buffett’s donated boat is being put to good use by the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Lab in fighting the BP oil spill:

“We’ve been looking for oiled wildlife, birds primarily. Fortunately, we’ve not seen any at all,” said Don Abrams, Volunteer Coordinator with GCRL. “I think Mr. Buffett was very interested in helping out oil wildlife, but we haven’t seen any problems here.”

So since the beginning of July, the boat has taken on different duties. It’s now part of the new GCRL Shoreline Sentinels Program. Several times a week, volunteers take the boat on patrol around the marshes of Ocean Springs and the Biloxi Bay.

“Looking at them from the water side and we’re able to put another pair of eyes on them. Something you can’t see from the shore,” said Abrams.

“Damaged fencing, or booms, things of that nature,” said GCRL Shoreline Sentinels Program Coordinator Read Hendon. “There was one instance that they found oil in the marsh all around from Marsh Point.”

The 17-foot SWAT boat is designed to navigate around shallows waters where larger Vessels of Opportunity can’t reach.

“Bridging the gap between those vessels and the beach walk and cleanup crews that have been walking the beaches,” said Hendon.

The boat is also being used by USM faculty and students for marsh research. It’s on stand-by to help the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service respond to any wildlife emergencies. And the Pascagoula River Audubon Center plans to use the boat for future bird surveys.

Read more about the S.W.A.T. boat effort here.

A survey was done of local Gulf Coast hotels to determine the success of the Jimmy Buffett & Friends Gulf Concert back on July 11th and the results were mixed. There’s no doubt the concert helped businesses the weekend of the show, but there doesn’t appear to be lingering benefits:

A survey of 25 hotels located within 75 miles of the concert in Gulf Shores, Ala., reveals that the concert packed local hotels – yet, despite the mass exposure for the destination, it didn’t boost future hotel bookings.

The Knowland Group, a meetings and convention industry tracker based in McLean, Va., conducted the survey on July 19 and 20. The results give us a glimpse into how travelers perceive Gulf Shores as much as how much help a benefit concert may provide, at least in this situation.

Highlights from the McLean, Va.,-based Knowland Group’s survey:

* 49% of responding hoteliers said that more than half their guests on the night of July 11 attended the concert.
* 45% of the hoteliers who responded to the survey said that less than half of their guests attended the concert.
* Of the responding hoteliers’ concert-going guests, 41% of guests stayed one night and 53% stayed two nights.
* 89% of the hoteliers said the event was “very helpful” to their business, with the rest saying it was “somewhat helpful.”

Despite the influx of concert-going guests, however, Gulf Shores-area hotels haven’t seen many people make plans to return to the area. Based on survey results, none of the hotels reported an increase in future room bookings after the concert was over and 59% of hoteliers reported a decrease in future hotel bookings.

Read the full article at USA Today.