Author: simon
Jazz Festival: BBC Recording: No ‘Yes’ To Missing Payments
Friday, 9th May, 2008 at 5:13 pm, Isle of Wight
It was Geri who represented the Jazzers on Radio 4 today.
You and Yours presenter, John Waite, did a telephone interview after some of the people who haven’t been paid put their feelings across, including Ian Shaw from this years Jazz Festival (although he’s been promised that the cheque is in the post).
Geri gave the Jazz Festival’s side as to why monies hadn’t been paid to musicians, etc, giving the most positive side to the story she could.
As the interview was coming to a close, Geri was asked directly a number of times if the people who were owed money were going to get paid. It’s possible that a couple of these times Geri wouldn’t have heard, as she was talking when he asked.
As the end was coming up there was no over-talking.
Q: Yes or no are you going to pay them? It’s a simple question.
A: People are gradually getting paid.
Q: So yes is the answer?
A: they are gradually getting paid.
As to why, given a perfect opportunity to say to Radio 4 listeners up and down the country, Geri didn’t just say ‘Yes we’ll pay them’, will make those listeners very confused.
We’ve decided to make the recording of the show available to you, dear reader, so you can get the full run of the piece.
What do you think? (audio file removed)
Due to a problem with the recording (see comments), until we have time to sort it, here’s the link to the Listen Again version
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May 9th, 2008 (4 days ago) at 6:19 pm
Thats running at 78 r.p.m. on my 45 player!
May 9th, 2008 (4 days ago) at 8:14 pm
are you sure you’re allowed to reproduce this sound recording on your website?
on a side note - what alot of twoddle… just pay the poor buggers up!
May 9th, 2008 (4 days ago) at 10:17 pm
They say that they were let down by the soft drinks sponsor for £17k on the 07 jazz fest, surely their profits were due to be way more than that, and this shortfall shouldn’t have resulted in so many people not being paid?
As for the man who had the heart op, Ms Ward said he had an op and they never heard from him again.
Errr, are they saying that they had no phone number or address for this person? Did they not have a contract for the sponsorship?
They have a responsibility to chase that sponsor down, in the same way that those owed money have had to take them through the courts.
May 9th, 2008 (4 days ago) at 10:50 pm
@Sam - yes, at double speed it does sound like the Diddy Men doesn’t it?
We’ll try and fix it next week, but in the meantime we’ll point to the BBC hosted version.
@Steve - reproducing - it could be arguable as usable as news reporting couldn’t it?
May 9th, 2008 (4 days ago) at 11:48 pm
i don’t know - just wanted to make sure you weren’t doing anything wrong!
alas, the only wrong doing here would appear to be the jazz office - their performance at lunchtime on the radio placed a cloud over the town with their continued question dodging whilst constantly referring to the victorian heritage of the town as a digression from the real point… paying people money that they are owed.
May 10th, 2008 (3 days ago) at 12:31 pm
LOL.
quote - are you sure you’re allowed to reproduce this sound recording on your website?
as if the interweb isn’t awash with unauthorised material.
i don’t know about the legal position but even if a bbc audio extract were saved permanently and placed on a site, i doubt if the bbc would bother much about it.
May 11th, 2008 (2 days ago) at 8:33 am
why are the jazz company not insured against loss of earnings?
Yesterday at 10:05 am
Lin - I don’t think you can get insured against bulls**t.
Yesterday at 5:47 pm
[…] 12th May, 2008 (10 seconds ago) at 5:47 pm (10 seconds ago), Isle of Wight It appears that the You and Yours programme which aired on BBC R4 on Friday has been picked up by BBC […]
Yesterday at 8:54 pm
One of the earlier contributors (Michael) asked: what happened to the soft drinks company who didn’t pay their £17,500 sponsorship to the 2007 festival? Looking through both the information leaflet and the official programme for the 2007 festival, the only company that could possibly fit the bill is Velocity (also mentioned on the VB in August 2006 as new official sponsors for the 2007 festival according to the festival organisers). However, Velocity rate just one very small logo on the festival information leaflet, which came out in 2006, and are conspicuous by their absence in the official 2007 programme. No mention, no advert, no logo. At £17,500 they would fit in the category of “major sponsors” which would entitle them to quite some exposure. Did they not want to pay their sponsorship because they had no publicity from the event or, maybe more likely, did the organisers already know that there would be no money coming from them even before the 2007 festival took place? That would also explain the lack of publicity. If you look Velocity up on the web, their site has not been updated since 2006, and the number provided for the company rings unanswered.
Either way, this does not explain why the bills were not paid. After the 2007 festival, when the organisers claimed that 10,000 people had attended, many people felt that this was somewhat optimistic. But even at half that number, ticket sales alone would have brought in anything between £ 75,000 and £ 300,000 (ticket prices ranged from £15-£60). Many of us who bought the stroller ticket at £60 also paid another £27.50 for the Cleo Laine/John Dankworth gig which must have brought in another £11,000 as all 400 seats were sold out. For the Folk & Blues festival, tickets ranged from £15-£90, and Friday’s programme on radio 4 mentioned 2000 festival goers, so again a substantial income from ticket sales. With sponsorship, private donations, fundraising concerts, programme sales etc. and the knowledge that most artistes travelled for free thanks to Wightlink, you may want to ask why the festivals ended up owing more than £ 50,000. (individual amounts have been shown to VB for verification).
Those of us who are owed money, and have dared to say so in public, are constantly characterised by the organisers as “negative”. This seems a strange point of view. We are all in favour of the jazz festival and would love to see the festival continue, but not at the expense of our businesses (on and off the Island) or of the many musicians who have either not been paid at all or had to wait anything up to a year to be paid. The end does not justify the means.