The AJC reported today on Mayor Shirley Franklin's decision to cut another 222 city jobs and a slew of recreation centers, but the reporter left out a small tidbit of large import to the local jazz community. It looks like the Atlanta Jazz Festival is no more.
According to the press release, "Due to the rapidly declining economy, revenues are down by approximately 12.6% and we project a $50-60 million shortfall for the fiscal 2009 year ... To address these economic challenges, we announced three cost-saving measures to reduce expenses and close the projected shortfall ... Collectively, we estimate that these measures will close approximately $37-42 million of the projected shortfall." These cost-cutting measures include eliminating "various arts programming, including Jazz Fest."
I have no idea what various arts programming means (I'm working on a full report for a future post), but it's probably safe to say that there will also be no 2009 version of Montreux Jazz Festival Atlanta.
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2 comments:
Hardly matters. We went for years to the Piedmont Park location. Last year they moved it to Woodruff Park...what a pit. Cars honking next to the venue, panhandlers everywhere, smell of human waste, not enough room to see the stage without sitting on top of one another. No more...we will no longer be attending until it moves back to Piedmont and most of our friends say they same thing.
It appears the compromise made with the parks dept. will have the AJF at Grant Park May 23 & 24. I expect it will be an excellent venue, much better than the park nazi that run Piedmont.
ag
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