Citing concerns over coronavirus, organizers of the Clearwater Jazz Holiday have pulled the plug on the four-day music festival in October, but are leaving the door open for smaller scale in-person events.
“After extensive coordination with the city and other officials, although we were hoping to deliver another one-of-a-kind event, producing the festival in its traditional large-scale format is not practical or feasible this year under the present circumstances," Steve Weinberger, CEO of the nonprofit Clearwater Jazz Holiday Foundation, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
"The health and well-being of all our constituents remain a top priority,” Weinberger added. “This includes our volunteers and staff, High Note Society members, corporate and outreach partners, beneficiaries of our education and outreach initiatives, participating musicians, and all the friends of CJH who make our family so special.”
The festival, in its 41st year, was set for October 15-18 in downtown Clearwater’s Coachman Park; it's the largest event Coachman Park hosts and welcomes between 35,000-40,000 fans annually. It joins another Bay area music festival, Reggae Rise Up in Vinoy Park, as the latest large-scale music event to scrap plans in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed 118 people per week.
Weinberger, however, views the pivot as a reimagination of the 2020 program and is optimistic about ideas for the smaller shows.
“We just need to be creative and that’s where we thrive. We also have great partners who believe in the tradition and mission. We are exploring the possibility for a variety of unique, smaller scale, live-music experiences, mostly open air, for October-December, that would be produced with CJH’s special touch and in line with health and safety mandates, guidelines and protocols," Weinberger added.
Speaking of mission, Clearwater Jazz Holiday hasn’t pumped the brakes on its youth education and outreach efforts in the wake of the pandemic. In fact, its creative program adaptations—including the new Young Lions Jazz Master “Virtual” Sessions and "Stop-Time Series" (stylized "STOP-TIME SERIES")—have expanded the reach of their traditional programming while continuing to regularly support professional musicians and educators who deliver the content, and are now positioned to benefit thousands of students in Florida and beyond.
And like the now-10-year-old Gasparilla Music Festival, funds raised by the nonprofit Clearwater Jazz Holiday Foundation have been placed back into local school performing arts programs with instructional learning experiences and special funding.
When COVID-19 arrived, the foundation started doing Zoom jazz clinics that connected students with local jazz musicians. Other programs told the history of jazz from the Civil War to the present. Steve Harris, the Music Director and a teacher at Seminole High School, told CL that “the Foundation is pouring into our young people and community in a very significant way.”
The change of plans sheds a light on the challenges Tampa Bay’s beloved large-scale events, and the municipalities that host them, face when trying to plan in the context of Florida’s phased openings. It’s hard for large organizations—especially ones with fiduciary responsibilities to a nonprofit mission—to make plans when there are question marks about what health and safety guidelines will look like when their festival rolls around.
In an email with CL, Jason Beisel, Senior Public Information Coordinator for the City of Clearwater, said Clearwater isn’t issuing any special event permits. He added that Clearwater’s special event permits are for groups larger than 100 people. Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Phase 2 reopening plan has a maximum recommended gathering size of 50 people.
Clearwater is, however, accepting applications for future events, provided that the event happens within 30 days of when the state of Florida moves to Phase 3 when larger gatherings are allowed. In his reopening plan, DeSantis said that Florida cannot move into Phase 3 until it sees “a downward trajectory of the syndromic and epidemiology criteria while maintaining adequate health care capacity.”
“This will occur when there is no evidence of a rebound or resurgence of COVID-19 cases and satisfies the benchmarks outlined in this Safe. Smart. Step-by-Step. Plan,” the plan adds.
Beisel said that anyone who applies for a special events permit in Clearwater must also submit a coronavirus safety plan and added that the city is in constant contact with anyone who applies.
“[The City of Clearwater is] letting them know that when we get close to the 30 day mark without advancing to phase 3 to begin making plans to reschedule or to make other arrangements,” Beisel wrote. “Our larger events that require major road closures, alcohol on city property, and very large groups of people we are communicating the desire to receive a 60 day notice of their plans prior to the regularly scheduled date.”
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This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2020.