[Dixielandjazz] The Audience is Dying

[Stephen G Barbone]

I think Kash and Marek missed my point about the "audience dying". I  
should have stated it more clearly.

The general discussion was about the Ocean Shores audience and then  
Trad Jazz Festivals in the USA. Those festivals DO NOT, by and large,  
seek younger audiences to replace the dead. The audience that used to  
attend are dying off, or otherwise infirm. Thus NO AUDIENCE.

On the other hand, as Kash points out, the audience for music is still  
alive and well. Especially for Dixieland Bands like Jim's, or mine and  
others that play in venues other than trad jazz festivals.

Neither he (I think, because I cannot speak for him) nor I have any  
problems drawing and/or pleasing audiences for our music and we both  
play a lot of gigs. And we both play Dixieland for audiences of YOUNG  
people as well as old people.

OKOM festivals started up when there was no longer much OKOM to be  
heard in other venues. There was still a huge audience of people who  
had grown up with the music that attended them and a LARGE DEMAND for  
the music, contrasted by limited supply. So Festivals started and  
prospered. The demographics are quite different today for several  
reasons.

1) That audience of people who grew up with the music has been dying  
off for at least the last decade.
I can remember posting about the decline and future fall of OKOM  
festivals on the DJML when I first joined it around a decade ago.  
Along with pleas to expand the audience by drawing in young people. I  
took a lot of heat for it back then, from folks who were living in  
denial. No doubt one can find some of those posts in the archives.  
Including one that Sacramento was in trouble before the board members  
actually knew it.

2) In some areas of the USA now, one can find Dixieland or Swing or  
OKOM on a regular basis in venues other than OKOM festivals. And with  
the TOP players. Best example is NYC with a plethora of GREAT OKOM  
bands performing every week. Other examples are Philadelphia and  
Washington DC.
Folks within a 100 mile radius of NYC can go in and hear Jon Erik  
Kellso with a fantastic band every Sunday, or Vince Giordano with an  
excellent band every Monday and Tuesday, or Gully Low Jazz Band every  
Wednesday, as well as superb OKOM concerts put on at Lincoln Center,  
the 92nd Street Y, or at The Sidney Bechet Jazz Society etc., etc.,  
etc. That said, there is obviously no need for a festival to hear the  
music near NYC.
NO FESTIVAL DEMAND =  NO FESTIVAL AUDIENCE = NO FESTIVAL

3) The combination of declining festival audience numbers and rising  
expenses of running a festival make it very difficult to bring the top  
bands to a given festival. For example: They simply cannot afford to  
fly far away bands to most west coast festivals, or in the case of  
Ocean Shores, to go more than 500 miles away for bands. That limits  
the musical quality of the festival, which in turn limits the  
audience. It is a self perpetuating, decreasing circle, that causes a  
festival to collapse under its own weight.

A festival like Sacramento has a HUGE PROBLEM. They once drew huge  
crowds, hired a great many bands, made a lot of money, all from old  
folks. That plus a lack of financial transparency resulted in almost a  
$ million surplus in the bank during the good times, after all  
festival expenses were paid.  That money was spent on running the  
festival when audiences started to decline and expenses started to  
rapidly escalate. That use of surplus money was kept secret from the  
board until one year when that surplus ran out, and the festival  
needed a loan  from the city. The new board, Bob Ringwald and the  
others who now run Sacto have a tiger by the tale. What to do?

Either expand the audience to make enough money to support all the  
good works that the festival sponsors. Or shrink the festival to trad  
bands only which will not generate any money to support those things  
like the Jazz Camp for kids, et., etc., etc. Or expand the musical  
offering and change the public perception of the festival.  It had  
long been viewed by the locals as a gathering of old farts parading  
with umbrellas and otherwise acting stupid. Thus it was a weekend  
where the locals bragged about avoiding downtown. How long will it  
take to change perception and gain a new audience? Several years at  
least, maybe a decade. After all, how long did it take Sacto's  
festival to grow to its 1990 size?

So please folks, think before you criticize those who are trying to  
salvage the Sacramento Festival and bring it into the 21st Century.  
Better yet, volunteer to help them put it all together.

Failing that, if you are a muso go find a venue where the new audience  
is and play for them. Compete head to head for audience with bands in  
other genres like some of us do. It isn't that difficult.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband