How’s Your Festival Doing?

Have you noticed the slow trend of the older jazz festivals to add new genres to their lineups, especially the trad fests? Perhaps the closing of some festivals because of smaller crowds has caused these changes. Then, again, some of the “older” festival boards have been getting a bit younger. It’ll be interesting to see how they fare with their changes. My 29-year experience with the Elkhart Jazz Festival began with a commitment to mixed genres or an eclectic lineup. And, instead of dropping some of them, we have added genres—and it’s paid off with good crowds and a money-making festival. We used consultants (Penny Tyler of Chicago fest, Eddie Banjura of Illiana, and Don Boyer, a professional festival attendee) to plan the first festival in 1988 and that really paid off. They readily agreed with us that the fest should not restrict the genres. We still believe that was our best decision. Penny Tyler urged us to treat the musicians as artists who deserve first class treatment and we have. She covered the legal matters that could haunt us if we ignored them, especially copyright laws as well as the chances of injury. It’s worth a few dollars of insurance for “just in case.” Having good talent, she said, is expected but lodging and transportation are also critical. The Hot Club of Detroit swing hot