WANGARATTA Council ensured the city’s iconic jazz festival went ahead last year with a $100,000 payment which was not publicly disclosed at the time.
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The festival was on the brink of being cancelled in the months beforehand when Nolan Media and Events ended its long-running association of managing the event.
Mayor Dean Rees said the $100,000 one-off payment to the festival committee was used in part to pay for work the promotional company had done before walking away.
He said the impact on businesses which rely on income from the jazz festival weekend would have been too great to call the event off.
“We thought we would underwrite them by $100,000 not knowing whether we would need to spend that amount or not, but we did,” Cr Rees said.
“It was only a couple of months before the jazz festival was to be held and we were too far down the track to cancel.
“It was the first time we had to do that and we were fairly adamant to the board we weren’t going to do that again.”
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Cr Rees said councillors agreed with the one-off payment, but it was never reported publicly until being revealed in the agenda of last week’s meeting.
“I’m comfortable with that,” he said.
“The jazz festival is a good thing for the community and we didn’t want to pull the rug out from so many businesses which were relying on the income from the event.”
The Border Mail has contacted Nolan Media and Events for comment.
The event suffered another recent setback with the resignation of artistic co-director Adam Simmons which has contributed to the decision to not stage the festival this year.
“The board is committed to ensuring the future of the festival, and for now that means taking some time to look at the way we operate and plan for the years ahead,” festival chair Miriam Zolin said.
But Cr Rees feared for the event’s future in its present format.
“We were finding numbers were dropping every year,” he said.
“Thirty years ago when jazz was really big, the festival was aiming at the 50-year-old age bracket and those people are now 30 years older and in their 80s.
“Jazz isn’t the genre the younger and middle age people are looking to enjoy.”
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