Jazz Fest Moving to Shipyards, One Step Closer to Return to MetPark

[fieldafm]

Chamblins did a lot worse then 'a little bit of a loss'.

Burrito was down more then a 'couple of thousand dollars'

A bar in the heart of downtown shouldnt be doing less sales then a normal Friday night when Jazz Fest is happening.

A restaurant downtown shouldn't be seeing no customers walk in their door for two hours when Jazz Fest is downtown.

Jazz Fest deserves better.
Downtown deserves better.
Jacksonville deserves better.

[AuditoreEnterprise]

Chamblins did a lot worse then 'a little bit of a loss'.

Burrito was down more then a 'couple of thousand dollars'

A bar in the heart of downtown shouldnt be doing less sales then a normal Friday night when Jazz Fest is happening.

A restaurant downtown shouldn't be seeing no customers walk in their door for two hours when Jazz Fest is downtown.

Jazz Fest deserves better.
Downtown deserves better.
Jacksonville deserves better.

I agree with you 100% but until Ron or burritos gallery posts the actual numbers they lost it opulent be right for me to speak on behalf of their businesses so that is where my generalized statements came from. Now on to more important matters. In order to get the festival back to the core. You have to hit the city where it hurts. Their re election campaigns. Now what we need to do is get all the people who have suffered loss due to this and get some sort of petition on Calvin browns desk and go public with a statement from business owners addressed to the news outlets and the mayors office saying the business owners want it back there. I'm with you guys if it's something you all want to pursue. field is right downtown as a whole..... jacksonville deserves better than that

[AuditoreEnterprise]

I will be at the volstead this evening for after dark if anyone is interested in discussing anything. If you have parking problems see my pitch thread of Facebook page for contact info.

[Coolyfett]

I just attended the Jazz Fest up here in Atlanta, they hold it here in a park no real amenities in the park, but there are a few on 10th Street. I couldnt help but think how Duval had a better set up. As the Jazz fest up here feels more suburban, eventhough its in midtown Atlanta. They should really consider moving the Jazz fest of Jax back in the heart of the city, instead of a dead zone near the river.

[mtraininjax]

Im all for celebrating our river, but moving this festival in the middle of downtown was what made it work so well.

The Festival was at Met park for a very long time. Then the city tried to get cute and move it all over town, after it was originally at Mayport. So they take it out of Mayport, where Mayport is dying a slow death, move it from Met Park, which is dying its own slow death and to Hemming Plaza, that was already dead, to the Peyton Pocket park along Main Street, which looks dead on a regular basis, now to the Shipyards that was dead, brought back to like with a couple of off the wall proposals, and now has a festival, not on the grass, but instead a stage built on the asphalt of Bay Street.

Everywhere the City puts this festival is toxic to the neighborhood or area. Maybe Special Events should move it to Mandarin, if we want to kill off the Southside. Should strengthen the Mayor's Southside base.

Kudos to Mayor Brown to put racing stripes on the Shipyards Proposals by setting up a stage next to a potential huge tax revenue source for years to come. What better place to put "Mayor Alvin Brown Presents" the Jazz Fest, than to entertain potential investors of what the shipyards could become, than to plop the festival on the location. Nice backdrop of Berkman II skeleton. How much more dead of an area can we create at the Shipyards, so really little downside, and lots of upside.

[mtraininjax]

you literally do not have the slightest clue about this subject, and this is one of your sillier posts, my friend.  I remember going to the festival at may port, where it was so successful that the city took it over and then moved it to met park. The departure of the festival was a terrible thing for may port by the way.

Without drawing a nice lovely rhetorical response, I believe the answer to why the festival moved was because it outgrew its space in Mayport, and the area did not have the resources to keep it. So unlike the festivals at the Beach, which has more resources than Mayport, this one moved downtown.

The Jazz fest was wildly successful at Met park too, but it got moved, why? New Administration, new ideas, trying to improve the City Core, put it on the spotlight, get people downtown. Now, we are off to the shipyards, where they are showing it off to others to grow more development, keeping a stage outside of Jim Bailey's office, to let him know that Brown is still in charge of the city. Nice touch.

I give Brown credit for moving the spotlight around downtown to give his discussions attention.

[RockStar]

I thought all of the music at the Maxwell House stage was good to the last drop.

The Jammin' Jailhouse Stage had the city on lockdown. People came out by the hundreds.

The Director of Special Events should resign. They took something that wasn't broken, that had turned into a major regional draw for music lovers and, as the kids say, crapped the bed.

I was told the skyway wasn't running as well. So even if you wanted to get halfway there, you couldn't.

[ssky]

What would be good for downtown would be for jerry to move to the south side. Surely there is some kind of grant for blight removal available to displace people who are making a neighborhood unpleasant.  Denise Lee seems to be able to come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time to remove people from Hemming Park.

He is presently trying to ban people going to events at the Library for weddings, speeches, lectures, ceremonies and etc from being able to park on city streets at night, (they should be forced to park in garages) so that a couple of parties that dine at his restaurant will make dinner reservations since they don't like to fight all that parking at night.  Apparently he has never heard of the concept of valet parking.

Stephen, where did you learn about Jerry and the Library parking issue? I have not read or heard anything in the news thus far. Is it public information?

[peestandingup]

Anyone know what the attendance was? I read one news source that said an estimated 100K overall, although I don't know how accurate that is or how it stacks up to the other years.

But didn't One Spark do almost double that in a couple days?

[TheCat]

It looks like the 100k figure was an estimation of the number of attendees prior to the actual event.

[ssky]

Stephen, where did you learn about Jerry and the Library parking issue? I have not read or heard anything in the news thus far. Is it public information?
[/quote]

His letters to city offices are a matter of public record.
[/quote]

Could you please tell me how/where to find it? Thank you!

[mtraininjax]

Stephen - Kinda hijacking the thread with the Jerry Moran issue, aren't you? I see we now have a new Jerry Moran thread, so that is good, but I'd kinda like to stay on topic of the Jazz Festival.

[vicupstate]

In order to get the festival back to the core. You have to hit the city where it hurts. Their re election campaigns. Now what we need to do is get all the people who have suffered loss due to this and get some sort of petition on Calvin browns desk and go public with a statement from business owners addressed to the news outlets and the mayors office saying the business owners want it back there.

+1000

If this is truly as bad as it is being portrayed and it can be substantiated with objective hard numbers, then this should not be just forgotten.  Frankly it seems as if the administration is continuously and deliberatively spitting in the face of a group of people that provided much needed (and early) grassroots support, without which he would have not won in the first place.   He isn't 'dancing with those that brought him' so to speak, all in an attempt to gain favor from the opposing side.  He is breaking a cardinal rule of politics, IMO and it will cost him in the end.

[Tacachale]

Ok, here's my take on this. Moving the Jazz Fest to the downtown core was inspired, and it worked out great for exactly as long as we had competent people putting the event on. Namely, Theresa Price and her team. I understand it proved difficult last year when the city no longer had them to rely on.

If the city didn't feel it could do the event properly in the core, it should have just moved back Metro Park, where there's at least the infrastructure. This year's setup meant that the event had none of the synergy of the downtown core and also none of the infrastructure of Metro Park. Unfortunately it sounds like the administration will blame the downturn in the event on the location rather than the fact that it was poorly planned and run, and take it back out of the core entirely.

[fieldafm]

when the city no longer had them to rely on.

It would be more accurate to say 'refused their help.'