[Dixielandjazz] The Montreal Jazz Festival - World's Largest?

[Stephen G Barbone]

With a 25 million dollar operating budget, and one million attendees,  
The Montreal Jazz Festival claims to be the largest in the world. Not  
too much trad is there, but note that Woody Allen's Band is featured  
among the 500 musical acts. While not specifically OKOM, this is an  
interesting article about a jazz festival that succeeds wildly.
Cheers,
Steve Barbone

www.barbonestreet.com
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

June 28, 2008 - NY TIMES - by Ben Sisario
Montreal’s Poet Son Heralds Its Festival

MONTREAL — On Wednesday night, in the last of his three concerts  
presented as preludes to the Montreal International Jazz Festival,  
Leonard Cohen, the 73-year-old hometown poet-hero on tour for the  
first time in 15 years, said that on his last time through town he was  
“60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream.” Between waves of  
applause and hollers in French and English, he added, “I am so  
grateful to be here and to be from here.”

Mr. Cohen’s math notwithstanding, hometown pride and musical reverence  
are at the center of the festival, which opened its 29th season on  
Thursday and runs through July 6. Billing itself as the largest jazz  
festival in the world, it attracts one million visitors a year to more  
than 500 concerts in a three-block music zone downtown and brings  
about $100 million in revenue to the city, according to Canadian  
government estimates.

With CD sales in a chronic slump, the music industry has been turning  
increasingly to live events for income, and in recent years big  
smorgasbord festivals have sprouted up all over North America, aiming  
to present all kinds of music for all kinds of people. But with a  
setting ideal for tourists as well as for local residents, and a solid  
history of eclectic programming — among the attractions this year are  
Woody Allen, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Public Enemy and the local  
debut of Steely Dan — Montreal has held on to a rare prestige.

“There is no parallel in North America and perhaps no parallel around  
the world,” said Scott Southard, a jazz and world-music booking agent  
who has 15 artists at the festival. “In Europe or Bonnaroo, for  
instance, they have to erect an entire village in a remote location.  
Here you have an urban environment without having to reconstruct the  
venue infrastructure every year.”

Begun in 1980 by two concert promoters, Alain Simard and André Ménard,  
as a way to fill up what was then a dry summer concert calendar, the  
festival takes over four concert halls of the Place des Arts  
performing arts complex as well as numerous theaters and clubs around  
the perimeter. Several blocks of downtown streets are closed for  
outdoor stages, retail and food booths and children’s activities.  
Despite the size, Mr. Simard, the president of the festival’s parent  
company, L’Équipe Spectra, said that “the goal is not to be the  
biggest jazz festival in the world, it’s to be the best.”

But as the festival approaches its 30th season, it is preparing to  
grow even bigger, with help from a four-year, $120 million government  
plan to develop the area around Place des Arts. The first phase, to be  
completed by next summer, includes a 75,000-square-foot park and  
performance ground, the Place du Quartier des Spectacles. The festival  
has also been given a 30-year lease and a $10 million grant from the  
Province of Quebec to renovate a nearby vacant building; when  
completed it will add one club for use year-round.

As a tourist draw second only to Grand Prix du Canada, the Formula One  
race held in Montreal in early June, the jazz festival has become an  
important symbol of Montreal’s cosmopolitan lifestyle, said Charles  
Lapointe, the chief executive of Tourism Montreal, a nonprofit agency  
financed through a hotel tax.

“The jazz festival exemplifies perfectly what we are presenting on the  
foreign market,” Mr. Lapointe said. “You can celebrate on the streets  
without any problems with security and express all the pleasure you  
want.”

Civic pride and creative abundance was clear on Thursday, the official  
opening. (Mr. Cohen’s touring schedule prevented him from being part  
of the festival proper; he appears at the enormous Glastonbury pop  
festival in Britain on Sunday.)

During the afternoon crowds gradually filled up the Place des Arts  
campus, slurping on ice cream cones beside the fountain and listening  
to the sound check for a tribute to Mr. Cohen featuring Chris Botti,  
Madeleine Peyroux, Buffy Sainte-Marie and others. Darting between  
indoor evening concerts by the veteran jazz singer Dee Dee  
Bridgewater, the young British songwriter Katie Melua and the African  
performers Vieux Farka Touré and Salif Keita, a visitor could quickly  
take in half a dozen outdoor concerts, parades and magicians. Two- 
thirds of the concerts are free.

The Cohen tribute drew an estimated audience of 100,000, filling the  
plaza and nearby streets. But the concerts by Mr. Cohen himself were  
the clear early highlight. Dressed like a spy in a crisp black suit  
and fedora, Mr. Cohen, who has said that after years in a Zen Buddhist  
retreat in California, his lifelong depression has finally begun to  
lift, sang a sleek and emotional set of nearly three hours. In “Bird  
on the Wire,” “Hallelujah” and “Tower of Song” he sang of being  
weighted down by cynicism and starving for affection, but between  
songs he doffed his hat and smiled broadly for sustained ovations.

The festival, a nonprofit enterprise run by the for-profit company  
L’Équipe Spectra, has an operating budget of $25 million. And though  
about 18 percent of that comes from national, provincial and city  
sources, the biggest form of government support is the closing of  
several blocks of busy city streets. The bulk of the budget comes from  
corporate sponsorships (40 percent) and sales of tickets and  
memorabilia (39 percent).

The prominence of sponsorships gives the festival a sense of  
hyperbranding. Looking over Place des Arts, it is almost impossible  
not to see a giant symbol of General Motors, the lead sponsor: besides  
GM logos on banners and fliers throughout the grounds, the company  
also has five displays of new cars for contests, and at least one of  
the many marching bands wended its way around, wearing black GM T- 
shirts.

Festival organizers say that they have made efforts to ensure that the  
sponsorship is tasteful and not intrusive. Signs are only seen  
outdoors, where concerts are free, they say. There is no advertising  
for the paid concerts indoors, and the organizers say they will not  
rename the event to suit any sponsor. To create an egalitarian  
atmosphere, the festival also shuns velvet ropes.

“You will never see a V.I.P. area on the site,” Mr. Ménard said.  
“There’s never a place where people walk and are told, ‘No, that’s not  
for you.’ The unemployed can stand next to the president of the  
sponsor company.”

For the Cohen tribute on Thursday night, however, there was a small  
area of bleachers near the stage reserved for the news media and  
others. But a reporter who lacked the necessary badges was still able  
to enter with a few kind words. And unlike many large festivals, this  
one had a network of fenced-off pathways that made quick travel  
through even a crowd of 100,000 tightly packed fans on Thursday  
evening easy for anyone needing or wanting to get through.

“The vibe is very peaceful,” Mr. Ménard said of the festival. “The  
fabric of this city is all about the quality of life. The fact is, we  
have long, deadly winters, so come summertime, everybody is in for a  
party — but a civilized party.”