No go for online jazz festival

Calls for Leeside’s famous jazz festival to be hosted online this year hit a bum note during a Cork City Council meeting this week.

The Guinness Cork Jazz Festival was cancelled for 2020 in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic with organisers anticipating a great return in 2021.

However during Monday’s Cork City Council meeting, Sinn Féin Cllr Mick Nugent asked if there was any way that City Hall could facilitate the festival being hosted online.

He said: “It could be hosted on Cork City Council’s social media channels and YouTube and shown all over the world. The festival isn’t not just about selling pints.”

He also had the idea that if it was held online, there could be a virtual tip jar for artists as he said musicians have been hard done by during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Joe Kavanagh told Cllr Nugent that he spoke to a representative from Diageo and hosting the festival online wasn’t as option.

The Lord Mayor said: “I had this conversation with an official from Diageo and they had investigated the possibility of hosting the festival virtually but he said no matter what angle they looked at it from it was impossible to come up with what he called a ‘logical suggestion’. There are certain things that be held online but we know that the jazz festival is very personal. He also confirmed to me that Diageo would support the festival in 2021 and going forward.”

The festival’s cancellation was announced at the start of July with a statement from the organising committee acknowledging that the news would be disappointing for music fans, artists, publicans and the wider Cork community but that health and safety is its number one priority. “We look forward to bringing back a strong, exciting and memorable festival in 2021,” the committee said.