Port Fairy Jazz Festival on its way

The concentration of talent will be for the inaugural Port Fairy Jazz Festival.

The first show will be at 5pm on Friday, the start of a marathon of Jazz that will wind up at 6pm on Sunday.

The festival will use 10 venues around town including Fiddler’s Green, the Lecture Hall, the senior citizens clubrooms, St Patrick’s school hall, St Johns Anglican Church, Reardon Theatre, The Drill Hall, the Star of the West Hotel, the Royal Oak Hotel and the RSL hall.  

All 115 bands are due to play two shows across the weekend.

Festival secretary John Huf, himself a jazz musician, said the event was shaping up well.

“We are really happy with how it is looking,” Huf said.

“We have based it on the now defunct Grampians Jazz Festival, which used to run every February.

“That was a very successful event for 30 years, so we are using the same recipe.

“The reason it came to an end was a shortage of helpers – but we have a good committee of 11 people in place here and everyone is working hard.”

Huf said ticket sales indicate between 1500 and 2000 people will attend the festival.

He said this would provide a huge boost for Port Fairy.

“We haven’t pushed hard at all on promotion of the event locally,” Huf said.

“Between the committee, we have a big network in the jazz community.

“On the tickets we have sold already, we would be expecting 90 per cent of the people who come to the festival to be from beyond the region.

“Hopefully as the festival becomes more established the number of people from Port Fairy and Warrnambool coming to the festival will increase and that will help grow the event.”

Special events will include a street parade down Sackville Street at 10am on Saturday. This will feature musicians, the Port Fairy Citizens Band and members of various jazz clubs.

The parade will conclude at Fiddler’s Green where musicians will gather to play a combined tune.