After the Ventnor Town Council meeting last night we caught up with members of the public who had asked questions of the Town Council, in response to letters published in the SW Chronicle regarding a booking from the organisers of the Jazz Festival for April 2009 to be held at the Winter Gardens.
One such person was John Wortham, a man who has been fighting the corner of creditors for three years.
He originally got involved in the saga as musician friends of his, Julian Mark Stringle and Digby Fairweather had to wait eight months for payment from the organisers.
After looking into the matter further, it became apparent that although many of the major musicians had been paid, there were many other businesses who had provided services for the festival with invoices still outstanding, as well as local musicians.
It is thought that this figure is in the region of £69,000 of unpaid debts from the 2007 and 2008 Jazz festivals as well as the 2007 Folk and Blues Festival.
Mr Wortham told us he was very pleased with the decision by the VTC to not deal with Ward and Snellen, as is clear on the podcast. [audio:http://otw-audio.s3.amazonaws.com/john-wortham-jazz-festival.mp3]
