Here’s a little recap of events around Ventnor’s Winter Gardens Management Committee (WGMC) and their recent acceptance of the booking to use the Winter Gardens for the Ventnor Jazz Festival 2009.
Maureen Cawley, the Chair of the WGMC, gave assurances on 5 May that the Winter Gardens Committee would only let the Jazz Festival go ahead at the WG if …
1) there was no adverse publicity following this years event
2) and all creditors being paid in full
No adverse publicity
Taking point 1.
Let’s be generous and forget for the moment about the large number of articles that the County Press has written about the monies still owed to those who supplied services to the Jazz Festival.
You can’t really ignore the fact that BBC radio ran a piece, including an interview with Jazz Geri, where Paul Burrows from the Musician’s Union said, ‘Normally when you have rogue promoters, they will disappear with the takings and never appear again but with these people, it’s almost Walter Mitty-ish, they think they can carry on.’
How much worse does publicity have to get before it’s called adverse?
Going on that basis of this apparent disconnection with reality, we wonder if the Winter Gardens Committee think that Jeffrey Archer is an upright fellow?
Point 2 – Debts outstanding
As some of the Winter Gardens Management Committee meetings are held in secret – eg members of the public are kicked out onto the street when it’s talked about – we have no way of knowing what has been discussed during that time.
We did a phone around people who say they’re still owed money by those organising the Jazz Festival.
Before …
Before some people get their knickers in a twist, let us state, again, that, like many people, we’re fully supportive of a Jazz Festival in Ventnor. It’s just that the people who run it should not still have significant amounts of money outstanding to businesses who have provided services to previous events.
Here’s what were were told …
Nick Ward from Island Marquees tells us that they are owed £14,000 and that the Jazzers “haven’t even paid anything. Not even a deposit.”
Island Marquees have already taken the Jazzers to court once and will be going to court again in September, where the action will be against the organisers personally, as previous attempts to get the monies from the Limited companies that were formed to run the Jazz Festival, don’t have any assets, so Island Marquees were left without money.
Philip Oxley of the Melbourne Ardenlea Hotel in Shanklin, who put up some of the festival’s musicians, are owed £2,900. This is up £200 from the original £2,700 owed due to the legal costs of taking the Jazz organisers to court and interest awarded by the Judge, when they had a judgement against the IW Live Music Trust Limited.
Brain Maddern of BKS Security tells us they are owed £3,500 from the 2007 Jazz Festival. Sadly BKS paid all of their staff — all Island staff — who worked at the festival, meaning BKS is out of pocket on that.
Confused at the OK from the Winter Gardens Management Committee, he suggested that they can’t be “doing their checks.”
Colin Hedgeley from the Beacon Magazine told us they were still owed £3,000 for advertising that wasn’t paid for. They also have a court judgement against the Festival. Bailiffs have been round to the Jazzers office in Pier Street, but left empty handed when they too were told that the company didn’t have any assets.
He told us that their “board is unanimous,” in their intention to pursue this debt.
The only company that we didn’t get to speak to was Kingswell who we’re told provided the portaloos, who we understand are owned just under £400.
Totals
That’s £23,800 that they say that they’re owed by the Jazzers.
These debts are just for the Jazz Festival and doesn’t including the monies that are owed from the Folk and Blues Festival that was run by the same people in Pier Street. We’ve heard that there could be another £25,000 is owed from that event.
