Rashid Lombard, co-founder of the popular Cape Town International Jazz Festival, South Africa, has said that jazz festivals are a powerful marketing tool.
He was speaking on the paper titled, ‘Jazz Festivals as a Driver for Tourism and Economic Growth’ at the opening ceremony of the Lagos International Jazz Festival, which took place from April 30 to May 2 at Freedom Park, Lagos.
“Festivals generally are powerful marketing opportunities, jazz festivals in particular,” he said.
He explained that incorporating festivals into marketing strategies is not, however, simply the addition of a vehicle to the tourism and growth of the marketing mix.
“The value of festivals to destination building – brand and metrics – is far more strategic than that. Importantly, festivals offer a destination, the opportunity to achieve a number of strategic imperatives central to tourism and economic growth and development – imperatives which, technically speaking, exist within most economic development plans across the world, in one form or another,” Lombard, who had been a photojournalist until the end of apartheid in South Africa, said.
The opening ceremony also featured a paper by Benson Idonije and the interesting story of how the Lagos Jazz Festival started from the founder, Ayoola Sadare, who credited Lombard for the inspiration to set out.
Sadare explained that he had gone all the way to South Africa in 2005 just to get audience with Lombard who was gracious enough to see him largely due to persistence on his part.
Lombard, who at the beginning of the ceremony said it would be remiss not to comment on “the despicable events that have occurred in the land of my birth recently”, corroborated Ayoola’s story.
“As my president, Jacob Zuma, has recently said, our nation is sick and needs healing, and this is a big concern now – we have much work to do. If I am to echo the sentiments of my community, I can only offer profuse and profound apology for the behaviour of some of my countrymen.
“There are words to convey the sadness, the shame and disappointment many of us feel. I, for one, am one who knows deeply the support that Nigeria and many others gave us during our struggle for liberation. Without such African support, our South African story may easily descend into a quagmire too terrible to contemplate,” he declared.
That evening of April 30, a cocktail in Lombard’s honour took place at the same venue before the festival organised by the Sadare-led Inspiro Productions tagged ‘Jazz in the Megacity’ kicked-off.
Among the performers for the three days were United Kingdom-based two-time Grammy Award-winning Nigerian international mega-percussionist, Lekan Babalola; United States-based multi-instrumentalist, Adeniji the ‘Heavywind’; bass virtuoso and director of the Span Academy of Jazz and contemporary music, Bright Gain; veteran musician and classical clarinetist, Tee Mac; vocal sensation, Ego; and neo-highlife musical icon, Nomoreloss.