Dear Jazzfriends!

Based on the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, the contagion situation, our public, artists, suppliers and volunteers, the board is unanimous that it is not justifiable to conduct this year's festival. We do this with a heavy heart, but the board also has a responsibility to take care of the festival, manage it well and secure its future. We cannot put the festival in a situation where we send it into the history books with open eyes," says Chairman Rye.

Tickets are refundable
Now the job of contacting interested parties begins to think together and move forward. Those who have purchased tickets will be offered a refund of the ticket money. or moving tickets. All necessary information will be made available on our website and those who have purchased the ticket will be contacted by email. We will come up with this as soon as the practical is in place. Pending further clarification, we ask for some patience, says festival director Kai Gustavsen. Now the dialogue with suppliers, artists and management also starts to find good solutions. The artists will be offered the opportunity to move the assignment to 2021.

We must secure the future of the festival.
We have hardly sold tickets in the last 4 weeks and expect ticket sales to stand still for several weeks to come. Budgeted ticket revenue alone is 14 million. This is not possible to retrieve. We have looked at different scenarios and they all show considerable risk. The festival is in danger of going on a deficit in the range of NOK 12-15 million at a July implementation. By making a decision to cancel now, this risk is significantly reduced, says chairman Juel H. Rye. For the jazz festival to come out of this in a good way, we depend on our partners now standing shoulder to shoulder with us through this. It is therefore good to know that we have good and long-term partners both in the public and among our sponsors, says festival director Kai Gustavsen