Sean Richarz, a Moscow native and University of Idaho alumnus, spent 42 years attending the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival to see jazz legends like Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz line the stage in front of sold out crowds.
Attending the festival was an annual event for Richarz, who attended the festival both as a jazz fan and as a high school band director.
The University of Idaho’s Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival has experienced funding cuts and a decline in attendees.
But Richarz, now a band director at Bishop Blanchet High School in Seattle, broke his 42-year streak in 2011.
After attending the festival again in 2013, Richarz said he has seen attendance and participation at Jazz Fest decline substantially. Richarz, who teaches at a private school, said Jazz Fest is an expensive trip for schools, and they thought other festivals could offer a better experience for the price. He now plans to take his students to the Reno Jazz Festival in April, rather than making the trip to Moscow.
“The decision to go, or to not go, was really done because we felt like the festival was not worth our money and effort and time,” Richarz said. “We just feel like we weren’t getting the bang for the buck anymore.”
Approximately 3,800 students attended the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in 2013 — a 66.3 percent decline in total participants since 2005. In addition, nearly 50 percent fewer people have attended the main stage concerts, down from 14,405 in total attendance in 2005.
Finally, the Jazz Fest outreach program, Jazz in the Schools, which brings professional musicians to perform and run clinics at regional K through 12 schools, has seen a 36.5 percent decline in the number of schools attending, and a 27.3 percent decline in the number of student participants in the past eight years.
“To me, it’s really obvious it’s gone down,” Richarz said. “It kind of breaks my heart.”
Jazz Fest has experienced a substantial decrease in the number of participating students, educational workshops and concertgoers over the past decade.
What changed?
After long time festival Executive Director Lynn “Doc” Skinner retired in 2006, the University of Idaho did a financial re-examination of Jazz Fest, and concluded that it needed to cut back funding and become more transparent, said John Clayton, artistic director of Jazz Fest.
He said after the re-examination, Jazz Fest was unable to hire the same amount of artists as it had in previous years.
As a result, Jazz Fest has seen a decline in the number of featured artists preforming in the past 12 years — down from 43 artists in 2001 to just 17 in 2013.
Cami McClure, executive director of Jazz Fest from 2006-2011, is now an administration and business affairs operations officer at UI. She said the festival was in debt and struggling financially when she took the position in 2006, and the re-examination was done to decrease the festival budget. She said the re-examination served to make Jazz Fest a break-even event that was not heavily subsidized by UI.
“The festival was huge before, there were a lot of expenses that we were not able to capture revenues for,” McClure said.
McClure said she was part of a group of UI administrators who looked at ways to cut expenses by reducing the amount of featured artists, and explored strategies to increase revenue. She said the group included Interim Provost and former Dean of the College of Letters Arts and Social Sciences, Katherine Aiken, Clayton and the Jazz Fest board.
McClure said oversight of Jazz Fest moved from the provost’s office to CLASS, after Skinner retired.
Steve Remington, current festival director, said the festival has also declined in scope due to multiple external factors that make it harder for schools and fans to attend — such as the 2008 recession and shrinking band budgets.
“It’s a tremendous fundraising effort that the school has to do to bring a band, or a choir, in order to get the students here,” Remington said.
Remington said schools have to fundraise large amounts of money due to high travel fees to and from the festival, not because of registration fees. He said the decrease in the number of students has had a large impact on concert attendance and ticket revenue, because schools are the primary ticket purchasers.
Participating schools purchased 47 percent of the gross ticket revenue in 2012, and 57 percent in 2011.
Other large regional festivals have also experienced a decrease in size and scope due to the same external economic factors faced by UI.
The Reno Jazz Festival, an educational event put on by the University of Nevada, Reno, also saw a decrease in overall attendance directly after the financial recession, said Chris Money, assistant director of programing for the school of the arts at UN. He said although the Reno Jazz Festival has not reached pre-recession attendance numbers, it is seeing a gradual increase in overall attendance and participating schools.
Remington said all civic events go through cycles of growth and change that continually redefine the event.
Across the board budget cuts in Idaho public schools have prevented many schools from coming to Jazz Fest, Clayton said.
“Time after time, we hear more and more people saying, ‘we just don’t have the money to bring our students this year,'” Clayton said.
Clayton said many band directors would still like attend the festival, but they do not have the funds or fundraising capabilities to raise funds.
A new Jazz Fest
Although Jazz Fest has decreased in size, Clayton said he is focused on the quality of Jazz Fest, and the educational benefits for students.
“Anybody who starts trying to look at quantity, in terms of student participation, for my money, they are barking up the wrong tree,” Clayton said.
Remington agreed, and said he is more concerned with enhancing the student experience at the festival than growing it. He said Jazz Fest continues to offer a wide array of workshops, and with the lower numbers, is able to give students more specialized attention.
McClure said there was a shift in the type of feature artists that were invited to the festival, when Clayton took over as artistic director. She said Clayton brought in a significant amount of young talented artists to Jazz Fest and that had not been done before.
“We didn’t hired him to do exactly the same thing, we wanted to see the festival move forward, and that’s what John did,” McClure said.
Clayton said through his connections within the jazz community and his busy touring schedule, he is able to find new artists to bring to Jazz Fest.
Richarz said Jazz Fest used to attract living jazz legends that he and his students would be excited to see. However after the change in festival direction, he said he was disappointed with the selection.
Remington said Skinner loved to bring in the stars of the jazz world, however, Clayton invites artists that share his love and vision of music. He said Clayton chooses artists that are strong role models for students, and can educate students in a meaningful way.
“He only brings in artists that he feels are going to add to a feeling of family and that play in a sprit of love and non-competition,” Remington said.
Community impact
Gina Taruscio, executive director of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce, said any decline in a UI program will result in less revenue for local businesses. She said Jazz Fest is an important event for downtown Moscow, because it brings in extra revenue from visiting schools and jazz fans.
“People are down in the community more, and that is a beautiful thing,” Taruscio said.
Taruscio said although the festival is smaller, UI has done a good job of incorporating the Moscow community into Jazz Fest by holding after-hour jam sessions at many of the local restaurants and coffee shops downtown.
Taruscio said Jazz Fest increases revenue for all businesses in Moscow, but especially local restaurants and hotels.
Melanie Zimner, director of sales for the University Inn, said Jazz Fest has a large impact for the hotel community in Moscow. She said the University Inn continues to sell out during the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Jazz Fest week, because of the visiting artists and students.
Zimner said Jazz Fest is a key event for the University Inn, because it provides a substantial revenue increase in mid-February.
Remington said he understands that many community members have fond memories of the former festival, but is confident Jazz Fest can be an event that has significance to the Moscow community for years to come.
“There will be people who feel a sense of loss when there is a change, there’s also an equal number of people who come forward and embrace new ways of doing things,” Remington said.
Richarz said he will always have fond memories of the festival he grew up with, but he does not think he will attend the festival anytime soon.
“People ask me if it bothered me when my streak was broken, well I said, what bothers me is that it’s not worthwhile going to the festival,” Richarz said.
Ryan Tarinelli can be reached at [email protected]