Death knell is not mere inconvenience

For 16 years the Greater Olympia Jazz Society met with Saint Martin’s University months before each festival (early 2017 last year) to obtain agreement for the following year’s Jazz Festival dates (upcoming June 2018). Always far in advance to make sure SMU agreed those dates could be published in the current (June 2017) Festival Program booklet and other publications. Only then could the Society start to book the best bands from all over the USA and Canada to perform during the 2018 published dates.

Top bands must be sought very early. They’re always fully booked. Large sound systems are booked for the four venue stages. Local hotels/motels schedule reservations for hundreds of visitors who arrange vacations to attend. Visitors spend over $1 million while here. Advance tickets have been sold. Band supporters have contributed thousands to pay costs for bands flying long distances.

Festival commitments cannot be made until after the advance scheduling meetings with SMU when SMU agrees to rent its facility for the mutually agreed dates. This same process was followed the last 16 years.

Last week, SMU President Heynderickx letter to the Society said he knew SMU’s unexpected action to take the Festival dates was what his letter called an “inconvenience.” It ends the Society’s 27-year festival forever. Impossible to start over the 70-80 year old Festival Board volunteer leaders told me. Volunteers spent thousands of hours to create this outstanding Festival.

Financial cost for hundreds of bands, hotels, restaurants, visitors. A death knell SMU calls an inconvenience.

This story was originally published January 10, 2018 at 3:53 PM with the headline "Death knell is not mere inconvenience."