Jazz@Rochester

Over at his The Political Notebook blog, WXXI journalist and political commentator Michael Caputo has put together a fine 3-part series of posts on the current status of the Rochester Fast Ferry and its future (here, here and here). His analysis is somewhat sobering as we consider that, assuming the new bond issue for $11.5 million is approved, the City of Rochester (which is indistinguishable from the Rochester Ferry Company) is on the hook for over $50 million with an asset that is worth maybe half that. While the growing amount of debt is a legitimate argument against continuing with the ferry enterprise, I’m not sure that now is the time to let it sink. I think that it was a bold idea that could work if ridership is given enough time to grow and the other impediments removed from its original financial underpinnings (whatever happened to the much vaunted commercial traffic that was to be using it?). However, one thing I find missing in all the talk on how to bring Canadians down here is getting it hooked into the Rochester International Jazz Festival. Passes are already on sale at the RIJF website for the 5th RIJF, which means that people are already starting to make decisions about attending (I did this morning to get in on last year’s price).

While attending the RIJF last year I met quite a few Canadians, from Toronto and elsewhere in Canada. Toronto itself has quite a few jazz festivals (Beaches, Guelph and the Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival, to name a few). In fact, the RIJF is one of the few events in this region that clearly would draw a “boatload” of Canadians down to Rochester (not its environs, but Rochester), for both day tours and for the full week of jazz. It is becoming an increasingly important jazz festival for both artists and jazz fans. Why not capitalize on that and on the fact that it is designed to be international in scope.

So why hasn’t the marketing started for the 2006 RIJF? Why aren’t packages available NOW? I haven’t found any so far. With so much at stake this year, the City should have been all over this. John Nugent and RIJF marketing should be all over this. Albeit from the sidelines, it appears that no one appears to be marketing the RIJF at all in connection to the Rochester-Toronto ferry (try putting the words “rochester international jazz festival ferry” into Google and see the results). Even if the principals don’t have much in the way of dollars to spend, and despite the uncertainty over the ferry’s future that is behind the lack of real marketing muscle being brought to bear, the main actors could be doing some marketing and promotion using the power of the Internet and other free tools to get the word out about the festival and drum up some (at least potential) riders for the ferry in June. It’s not going to happen on its own; someone’s got to step up to the mike and blow.