The circus has left town, also known as the Rye Jazz Festival advertising itself as an International Festival of five nights and four days over the recent August Bank Holiday. The organiser of this fandango doesn’t live in Rye.
However, the well-produced brochure announced names of musical renown who would be playing at various points in the town of Rye. In fact most of it was actually played out in the very centre of Rye, virtually at the top “Cross Roads” of the town ie Lion St, Market St and the yard now almost known as Kino Place.
Who were the chief beneficiaries during this extended holiday period? Perhaps many cafes and suppliers of cooling refreshments but not probably any of the genuine retailers who had remained open over the Sunday and Monday, at extra staffing costs to themselves. With burgers and other food available from the pop-up fryers hard by St. Mary’s Centre, with the relevant smells perhaps added to the general holiday mood of those sat in the serried ranks of chairs in the road immediately facing the Butter Market thereby closing access to through traffic, whose drivers then had to go round Church Square to their destinations via West St or Mermaid St. Fine for locals, but rather perplexing to unknowing visitors to the town.
Had permission been obtained for this road closure? Happily Rye Town Council did get rent for use of the Butter Market, but who else took any extra cash through their tills? I doubt that this was the case for the two principal cafes hard by the church, or indeed any other eateries who already had their holiday bookings well in hand. TOILETS. Always a difficult question, - the nearest being by the Gun Garden, so one hopes visitors knew their way there.
Not being any sort of jazz expert, I cannot tell whether this was good jazz or not, but I am told the two concerts in St. Mary’s Church were superb, - but they were specifically ticketed. Nevertheless perhaps four days of thump, thump, thump does not present an attractive proposition to nearby householders, especially when their windows are leaned against by listening passers-by, in order to get a better view over those in the chairs in front .These listeners have the choice to move on to look at the rest of the town, but the home-owner is stuck with ongoing amplification for hours on end.
Perhaps the very centre of a town is not the place for a jazz festival, customarily they are held in more open places, but near enough to go exploring in peace. Not everyone visiting Rye over a bank holiday wants the centre to be dominated by jazz. Perhaps therefore the Salts would be a better spot to use, offering both open space, with nearby toilets.
I won’t remain "Anonymous" but hope there may be some sympathetic readers/listeners to this point of view. I should add I love hearing the bells of St. Marys, as well as the cheerful wedding proclamations from our two Town Criers, but do I really have to leave my home for August bank holiday? “When the tanks are on your lawn” etc, etc?
[Rye Town Council will be discussing an official complaint about the Jazz Festival this coming Monday, September 19, when the Policy Committee meets.Editor]
Photo: Seana Lanigan
