STEVE GORDON, organiser of several music tours to South Africa, explains why the Cape Town jazz festival collapsed — and how to put together a successful event
ANNOUNCED by Captour in 1994 as “the biggest- ever jazz festival in Africa”, the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, which collapsed last week, had already tasted controversy a year ago, when its promoters were accused of advertising artists who had not been contracted to perform.
In February 1995, festival organiser Gerry Spencer, of Spencer-Miller Entertainment, was censured by the American management of jazz musician Harry Connick Junior, as well as by Duncan Gibbon, marketing manager of Gallo Records, which releases Connick’s records in South Africa.
Accusing Spencer of breaking international conventions, Gibbon warned: “Something like this can send the wrong signals to the outside world. South Africa has been thrust back into a more professional arena, and it is absolutely crucial that we learn the ropes very quickly.”
Not only was the advice unheeded but, tellingly, it was brushed aside by Spencer- Miller Entertainment, who claimed they had “top-line jazz musicians queueing up in Japan, Australia, all over the place”.
One year on, and it is clear that neither the festival’s organisers, nor Captour, nor the prospective sponsors, learned anything from the incident. As late as a week before the scheduled commencement of the festival, artists were being advertised who had not been contracted to play.
Not only is this form of incautious promotion unfair to ticket-buyers, but it places artists on the horns of a dilemma: having been advertised, they will appear in poor light should they not participate. As Connick’s manager wrote in a letter published in the Cape Times: “Your use of Connick’s name to promote your festival without his knowledge or permission results in severe harm to his reputation, since he will have to announce his ‘cancellation’ in the future.”
One of the prime drawcards of the festival was singer Randy Crawford. But in late January this year, the festival organisers announced that she had “withdrawn”.
If Crawford in fact reneged on a signed contract, it is puzzling why the organisers did not simply publish an explanatory statement from the artist . Instead, there were obscure comments in the press from Spencer: “They wanted us to guarantee her nine shows throughout South Africa, but we only wanted her for three shows in Cape Town.” The number of shows requested during negotiations was surely irrelevant by the time the artist was advertised and contracted. Why confuse the public and the media?
Paperwork does not seem to have been a strong point of the organisers, and this problem was not restricted to artist contracting. Reading between the lines in the wake of the collapse, it is clear that the requisite contracts and financing were not in place. The organisers first blamed the SABC, then pointed fingers at KLM and Captour. Verbal commitments may or may not have been made, but who would allow a festival to proceed when the payment of hundreds of thousands of rands had not been documented in writing?
In my mind, the responsibility rests on the shoulders of the festival’s organisers, who were central to all the negotiations. But South Africans are so keen to stage events (and develop tourism) that Captour and the entertainment media went out and marketed the whole package prematurely. In future, let’s check the contents first.