[Dixielandjazz] Re: "Jazz" Festivals

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/31/03 9:00:41 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
WILLIAMHORTON at peoplepc.com writes:

> 
> I'm certainly sympathetic with the problems of bands and musicians, but it
> should be remembered that it takes a big bunch of unpaid people about a year
> of preparation to put on even a one-day festival.  And it takes several
> thousand paying jazz fans to make one financially feasible.
> 
> Bill Horton
> 

Sorry to disagree with you Bill me boy, but it does not, it take a 
Professional promoter who knows what the hell he/she is doing and about twenty 
professional people about 60 days to put on a successful festival.  I play them all 
over the world and get paid more money for one or two 90 minute shows a day than 
some of the so called Traditional Jazz festivals pay all eight of their 
headline bands.

And I am talking about festivals in football fields with tents that hold ten 
thousand people or more, full blown restaurants for catering, full bars in 
several locations, and a whole lot more food and other vendors.

Pori Jazz handles about 500,000 people or more in nine days.  15 stages and 
venues all within walking distance, or wheelchair if needed, they also have 
shuttle busses which any professional festival would have if needed.

The same sort of festivals operate all over Europe and are so bankrupt they 
are celebrating thirty to forty years of doing it and selling them all out 
every year, 10,000 to 50,000 people per day and more.

   Try going to the North Sea Jazz festival in the Hague, the worlds largest 
indoor Jazz festival with 15 stages, operating at the same time, and 250 bands 
performing from noon until 2:00 a.m. daily for four days, plus a large five 
venue operation out doors to kick off the main festival.

What most traditional Jazz societies call festivals is nothing more than a 
nightclub show or a hotel ballroom with a lot of bands playing.  The problem 
with many of them is that they are run by well meaning volunteers, but they are 
not professionals and can only do what they are asked to do by the non 
professional promoters of the events.  You usually get what you pay for, and at all 
the festivals I have been to I have seen the professional volunteers who sign up 
for all of them to get free admission and drinks, etc.  Mind you certainly 
not all of them, but a good number of them.  The festival would be better off to 
hire professional people or firms to do the jobs and then make them 
accountable for what they do.  For instance, You can't, not pay a volunteer for giving 
away free drinks from your bar to all their friends, or the one who gives out 
free passes or badges to folks etc.

Traditional Jazz Societies in the USA for the most part are small private 
social clubs having parties for themselves and their own amusement, mostly at a 
fraction of what it normally cost to attend any professional concert in the USA 
and at the expense of the artist who play the circuit.  Try going to a 
professional concert of any headline act, you will pay about $30.00 for a good seat 
in a two hour professional show, and believe me when it is over you got your 
monies worth most of the time.  Paying $10.00 to $20.00 to hear one or two good 
OKOM bands and six mediocre ones is not a bargain, it is Ear Fatigue and 
stiff butt muscles for most folks.

I have said it before and I will say it again, Quantity of bands at an event 
is not what is important, QUALITY is and people will always pay top dollar for 
Quality acts, and quality seats.

This is not BURGER KING AND YOU CAN'T ALWAYS HAVE IT YOUR WAY, if the 
societies continue this way the best acts will drop out of the circuit when they 
discover more professional places to perform and under better conditions which are 
important to the musicians to allow them to present their music int he best 
professional manner possible to satisfy the audience who paid to hear them.  
Without the Musicians you will not have a festival to sell tickets to, it is 
high time the societies started paying more attention to the folks who are the 
reason for their success and existence in the first place.  What if they threw a 
festival and NOBODY came?  What it all boils down to is, "It's ALL ABOUT THE 
MUSIC."

OKOM Festivals are in a RUT, and are getting smaller and smaller all the time 
because the promoters refuse to reach out and recruit new audiences and take 
the festivals to more suitable venues that could attract more people and 
handle them comfortably.

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins