Festival Productions dropped by Essence Festival

[windowman]

Essence Fest has decided to change producers of its annual extravaganza held in N.O. every July 4 weekend and has replaced them with Rehage Entertainment, the group that produces Voodoo Music Experience in City Park in October. Rehage was a candidate to replace FPI after the NOJHF ran into financial problems heightened by the wet and not well-attended Jazz Fest that year. Instead of Rehage running Jazzfest, a partnership of FPI and AEG Live was created and approved to run Jazzfest, which it has done since 2005. This may not have any impact on Jazzfest, but it surely seems a little curious just days away from the announcement of the Jazzfest lineup.

http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2008/01/essence_taps_new_festival_prod.html

[Fred (Texas JF Fanatic)]

Go figure............
From that same article:

"I was having lunch with George Wein (chairman of Festival Productions, Inc. of New Orleans) and he was talking about the extraordinary role that African-Americans have had in the world through music, and that that needed to be celebrated," Lewis said in an interview in 1995. "We met again over drinks in 1994 and I began to talk about the 25th anniversary of Essence. We agreed to work together to create a celebration of music and culture to celebrate the magazine's anniversary."

"I literally created it. I convinced them to come and do it," Wein said. "At this point in our career to be insulted in that way, I can't understand."

Wein said Festival Productions is capable of doing all the things Rehage has been hired to do. He suggested that a "personality conflict" between the administration of Essence Communications and Festival Productions led to the producer's dismissal. "When people have a personality conflict, they don't care," Wein said. "They'll cut off their nose to spite their face."

[stlbarb]

nice line up, but the tickets remind me of what a great deal jazzfest is.

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/1B003F348FA7908C?artistid=854752&majorcatid=10001&minorcatid=202
http://www.essence.com/essence/emf/tickets.html

[ohio]

yow!

[stlbarb]

yow!

and drinks will cost more, no Denver, yikes.

[ibjamn]

nice line up, but the tickets remind me of what a great deal jazzfest is.

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/1B003F348FA7908C?artistid=854752&majorcatid=10001&minorcatid=202
http://www.essence.com/essence/emf/tickets.html

Yeah, but you get a one year subscription to Essence mag with your ticket too!