As usual the questions never get answered and no one is checking to see where the money went. Our Jazz Festival has a history of taking the money and running. We used to have one of the best jazz festivals in Canada before this started to happen.
A friend asked me years ago "How can a festival go bankrupt when it’s sponsored and mostly run with volunteers?"
The real jazz festival was the two days at Olympic Plaza. Grant Burns at CJSW said the Chic Corea concert was close to breaking even. Even with the cancellation they have to pay for the advertising venue and artist. Why announce that the festival is cancelled instead of saying “We can’t proceed with some of our shows”?
It was like they were trying to hurt Beat Niq Cantos and other venues that paid for the jazz fest to advertise their shows which were not cancelled. Why did the executive board approve of overspending last year and again this year?
Cancelling the festival made as much sense as hiring a rock band from Nelson B.C. as they did at last year’s festival. For some unknown reason someone took vengeance on the jazz fans jazz clubs and jazz musicians of Calgary.
ALEX HUTCHISON
CALGARY
