19th Edition Festival Update
Rochester, NY—Marc Iacona and John Nugent, producers of the CGI Rochester International Jazz Festival released an updated statement today to festival patrons and friends on the status of festival planning, which is proceeding as previously announced for a rescheduled event.
CGI Rochester International Jazz Festival Update from the Producers
"Greetings from our RIJF team. This is a message of HOPE. We hope this finds you healthy and safe as we all do our part to social distance. And we are hopeful for a better tomorrow, with a full "flattening of the curve" allowing us to return to some form of normal.
Music is the soul of all humanity and we all crave the spirit of creative improvised music now more than ever. This has been a trying time for festivals and live events including RIJF as we have been forced to make painful decisions to either cancel or postpone our events and see a domino effect of financial and emotional burdens and in some cases devastation.
Rather than giving up during this time of uncertainty, we are continuing to take a hopeful course and are forging ahead to the best of our ability to reschedule our 19th edition festival for October 2 to 10, 2020. These plans are fully predicated on being able to gather safely according to recommendations of our health and government officials. If we are able to proceed with our plans, we will follow all guidelines as specified by our health and government officials. We will also take additional precautions to provide our patrons with masks and hand sanitizer.
As we mentioned in our last email, we have been diligently communicating with venues and all artists to reschedule the festival. Many artists we had expected to present to you in June want you to know they are ecstatic about the opportunity to be part of a rescheduled festival!
As one might expect, the revised program will feature changes. To make an analogy, over several months, our team had completed a beautiful several thousand-piece puzzle for June 19 to 27. Then a massive unexpected windstorm came along, blowing all the pieces into the air.
We have, however, begun the process of putting this huge puzzle back together and reshaping it to be as brilliant as we had originally intended.
In this process there are four headliner shows that we are unable to reschedule: Nile Rodgers and CHIC, Wynonna and the Big Noise, Trombone Shorty, and Garth Fagan Dance and Monty Alexander due to artist and/or venue unavailability.
For those holding tickets to these Eastman Theatre headliner shows that cannot be rescheduled, we will be contacting you directly today in a separate email to find out your preferences of the following options.
Canceled Headliner Show Ticket Options
Refund - We will provide a refund for the full show value of tickets purchased. Since we do not own the ticketing system we use, we appreciate your understanding that we are unable to refund service fees. Refunds will be processed beginning May 1, 2020.
RIJF Credit - We will provide an RIJF credit to you for full ticket purchase price toward a future festival headliner ticket, club pass or merchandise purchase in 2021 or 2022. This will be a big help to assure the future of the festival following the losses we will be sustaining this year due to these unexpected turn of events.
We will continue to keep you updated as we move forward in the process of rescheduling the rest of the festival.
As we have previously noted, Club Passes will be good at the postponed festival in October. If you cannot use it in October for any reason, you can use it for our 20th Anniversary Festival in 2021 or at our festival in 2022. This credit will assure you that your Pass is good for up to two years and if you are unable to use your Pass this year, you will not sustain any price increases.
We are aware that you have placed your trust in us to deliver our annual festival and appreciate your continued patience. On behalf of the entire RIJF team, we would like to say THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts for the words of support and encouragement so many of you have sent to us as we navigate uncharted territory.
We will continue to communicate with you. You can also check the FAQs on our website, where we will post all updates.
Please stay safe, keep the faith, let music fill your hearts and with a little help from above, we'll see you all on Jazz Street in 2020!
John Nugent & Marc Iacona
Producers
CGI Rochester International Jazz Festival