Sacramento Music Festival Defunct after Four Decades

Mere days after the announcement of the permanent cancellation of America’s Classic Jazz Festival in Lacey, Washington [Editors note: It made a comeback in 2019], the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society has announced it is scrapping the venerable Sacramento Music Festival after 44 years. This announcement, which comes to us hours before we go to press, was made on December 18 in a post on Facebook. The Sacramento Music Festival had been an advertiser with The Syncopated Times during its two years of publication. The Sacramento fest, known until 2011 as the Old Sacramento Dixieland Jazz Jubilee, had been held in Old Sacramento each Memorial Day Weekend since 1974. According to a report in the Sacramento Bee, during mid-1980s, the festival drew more than 85,000 attendees and hosted venues throughout the city. Attendance began to fall off beginning in 2002, and the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society scrambled to make the festival more appealing to a wider audience. The event was rebranded in 2011 as the Sacramento Music Festival to acknowledge other musical genres already hosted by the festival, including rock, country, blues, among other styles. The festival was still losing attendance and money, and in 2014 the Society solicited emergency donations, stating it was $80,000 short of cash in meeting its budget. They were able to raise $60,000 through community fundraising but