The Montreux Jazz Festival, founded in 1967, has grown to the second largest jazz festival in the world after the Montreal International Jazz Festival of Canada. Over the years, a wide variety of musical forms has been integrated into this festival. Currently, the Montreux Jazz Festival includes almost all forms of music even while jazz remaining a major part of the festival. Today a number of world’s famous musicians perform in the festival, and this festival has currently audience strength of over 200,000. In each year, new additional events are included in the festival so as to reach a broader audience. This has also improved the scope of this high-profile event. This festival performs a number of key roles in the society. One of the major roles of this high-profile event is that the festival unites people having different beliefs, ideologies, and cultures and promotes religious harmony and unity in the society. At the same time, Montreux Jazz Festival has mixed impacts on the society while analyzing this event from socio-cultural, environmental, political, tourism, and economic perspectives. It seems that this musical event has the potential to eliminate hatred and violence from the society and to promote national integrity. From an environmental perspective, events like Montreux Jazz Festival significantly contribute to intense environmental issues like global warming and climate change. In addition, it enhances the performance efficiency of a region’s political spectrum. Finally, the event industry promotes the growth of tourism sector thus leading to the fast economic development of a region.
2. Introduction
The scope of event management has notably increased over the past decades because the popularity of high-profile events related to arts and sports have been on the rise over the years. Currently, people are increasingly willing to spend more on event performances as they are interested in the wonderful visual experience associated with live stage shows. In this context, event professionals and event management firms take intense efforts to organize shows in a way that meets the interests of a modern audience who are willing to pay for an exceptional visual treatment. Event organizers have identified the inextricable link between art and culture, and hence, they take every possible effort to bring cultural aspects of an art in event performances. This paper will critically explore the rise of the event ‘Montreux Jazz Festival’ and the event industry in general and evaluate the impacts of this event on the society.
3. Rise of the Montreux Jazz Festival and the Industry
The Montreux Jazz Festival was established in 1967 by Claude Nobs, Geo Voumard, and Rene Langel with a great level of support from the Atlantic Records. Being first held in Montreux Casino, this event lasted for three days. In the launch of this festival, many famous jazz artists including Charles Lyold, Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee, and Jack DeJohnette performed. In the following two years, the festival lasted for 5 days, and numerous rock, pop, and jazz artists participated in it. Santana played in Montreux Jazz Festival for the first time in 1970 and Sadao Watanabe, an artist representing Japan, performed remarkably well in the festival (Chillon Castle Foundation. (n.d.)). In the fifth festival organized in 1971, over 300 musicians including Gary Burton and King Curtis participated and the event lasted for 9 days. In the next year, the festival was held at the Montreux Paviollion because the Montreux Casino had been already burned down. For the first time in history, Montreux and Newport festivals were conducted simultaneously in 1973 (Chillon Castle Foundation. (n.d.)). Over the next two years, the programs at the festival were notably diversified to enhance the scope of this event on a global perspective. In 1976, more than 100 albums that had been recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival were released (Ibid).
Another major event occurred in the history of the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1978 when a coalition with the Sao Paulo Festival brought a Brazilian touch to the Montreux. Two years later in 1980, the festival combined with the Detroit Jazz Festival so as to expand the scope and popularity of programs. New attendance records were created for the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1985 with the inclusion of artists like Leonard Cohen, Nina Hagen, and Kid Creole. In the 20th anniversary of the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1986, all the concerts designed for the festival were sold out prior to the festival because those concerts included exceptional programs bringing a number of popular of artists together (Ibid). By the 22nd festival in 1988, the Montreux broadened the scope of the festival by including music programs in general. When the festival celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1991, Miles Davis’ concert and the George Gruntz Concert Band were they major highlights of the show. In 1993, the venue of the festival moved from the Casino to the Convention Center, which in turn earned a new record by attracting nearly 680,000 spectators in the second festival held in 1994. The festival organizers made a strategic move in 1995 by trimming down the price of entry tickets notably and which in turn benefited the festival to create a new audience record (Ibid).
In 2000, a series of new events were included in the festival to improve its scope and to draw attention of a broader audience. Over the last decade, the Montreux Jazz Festival introduced a variety of new events though it is still prominent for jazz events. Currently, Montreux Jazz Festival is regarded as the world’s second largest annual jazz festival after the Montreal International Jazz Festival of Canada (Ibid). Even while the festival invites artists from every music style today, jazz remains to be a key part of the festival that lasts for a period of two weeks and attracts an audience of over 200,000 people. The origins of jazz music could be attributed to the African American communities of New Orleans, and its history is dated back to late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since then, the jazz music industry has attained a considerable growth, and currently it has become a key part of the Western music culture. This area of music has emerged over the years and it pays specific focus to performance orientation.
4. Role of the Event/industry in Society
Being the world’s second largest annual jazz festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival plays numerous socio-economic roles in the society. Undoubtedly, arts like music and drama can play a vital role in promoting social harmony and national integrity in the state. As Montreux Jazz Festival is a huge event that fosters the inclusion of every form of music, people would obtain an opportunity to know more about different cultures and social structures. Such understanding would enhance religious harmony and brotherhood in the society, and which in turn is vital to abolish the evils of hatred and violence. Having audience strength of over 200,000 people, the festival contributes notably to the development of the music industry, particularly the jazz music.
Similarly, this event industry plays an active role in enlightening the society about the significance of promoting sustainable development. Obviously, a huge event like Montreux Jazz Festival will create a certain amount of waste. In the context, the Montreux management strives to reduce the amount of waste while at the same time enhancing the recycling of waste materials. Considering the event industry’s efforts with regard to waste recycling, the Montreux Jazz Festival was given the Swiss Recycling Award for 2014 (montreuxjazzfestival.com. (n.d.)). The organization also maintains a team of employees who work 24 hours a day to deal with the recycling of waste materials and thereby achieves the cleanliness of the festival area (montreuxjazzfestival.com. (n.d.)).This practice will certainly deliver a good message to other organizations, businesses, and the society as a whole. The scenario would add to the waste management culture of the entire region. In addition, the Montreux Jazz Festival is particularly concerned about promoting social responsibility among the community in which it operates. As part of its social responsibility initiatives, the organization maintains an extensive forum for open discussion that in turn leads to the development of effective prevention strategies. The organization provides carpooling service to festivalgoers with intent to minimize the combustion of fossil fuels, emission of greenhouse gasses, and ultimately the level of pollution. When it comes to energy consumption, the Montreux Jazz Festival demonstrates its commitment to protecting the environment by relying maximum on eco-friendly energy sources.
5. Impacts of the Events on Society
5. 1. Social and cultural impacts
Events like Montreux Jazz Festival can have significant social and cultural impacts on the society. As discussed already, those events assist people to create good understanding of different cultures as musical performances greatly reflect the culture of a community or region. Such an understanding of diverse cultures would promote religious harmony and national unity. In addition, musical events like jazz festivals keep new generations informed of music tradition and evolution of their community. Finally, these events are helpful to resolve emotional conflicts between communities and regions and thereby establish peace in the society.
5. 2. Physical and environmental impacts
Obviously, a big event like Montreux Jazz Festival will create a huge amount of waste thus threatening the environmental sustainability in the long-term. Although the Montreux Jazz Festival takes great care to dispose and recycle the waste materials scientifically, this event still leaves a considerable volume of wastes unprocessed. It is clear that dumping of plastic wastes such as bottles and covers by festivalgoers would severely damage the structure of the soil because plastic wastes are non-degradable. In addition, mega events will lead to increased consumption of energy in the form of transportation and electricity, and the situation in turn will result in dreadful environmental issues like global warming and climate change.
5. 3. Political impacts
Evidences suggest that high-profile events like Montreux Jazz Festival would lead to the collaboration of political parties. To explain, politicians and political parties combine their forces in the time of a major event regardless of their ideological differences and personal interests so as to keep themselves active in the society. In other words, political parties see such events as an opportunity to demonstrate their organizing and coordinating skills, and therefore they approach those festivals positively. Hence, one can argue that events like Montreux Jazz Festival would refresh a region’s political spectrum and direct its efforts towards the common good of the society.
5. 4. Tourism impacts
Similarly, huge events like Montreux Jazz Festival can markedly contribute to the growth of the tourism industry in the region. When thousands of people visit a place to attend an event, tourism and hospitality sectors in that region can obtain exposure to a broader audience who are willing to spend considerably on leisure activities. For instance, when a major event is hosted in a place, there will be an increased demand for hotels, restaurants, taxies, and other related services. Therefore, hosting of a high-profile event can benefit a region to grow its tourism sector significantly in a short span of time without making huge investments.
5. 5. Economic impacts
It is observed that high-profile events can have mixed impacts on the economy of a region. Sometimes, the government and other public sectors of the region may be forced to invest heavily for the successful conduct of the event. In this circumstance, the government would suffer huge financial losses unless the audience participation is below the expected levels. In contrast, if the audience participation meets or exceeds the expected level, then the government/organizers can earn good revenues that are enough to cover the expenses incurred. Normally, a huge event contributes to the progress of the region’s tourism industry and thereby adds to the economic development of that region.
6. Influence of Culture
Sociologists indicate that cultural aspects can have a great influence on the way an event is organized and performed. It is a fact that most of the arts including music, dance, and films reflect the cultural traits and ideologies of a community or region, and therefore art events are notably influenced by different cultural factors. For instance, the origin of the jazz music is closely related to the culture of African American communities and therefore the Montreux Jazz Festival greatly reflects the cultural tradition and traits of this ethnic group. In other words, the operational policies and objectives of the event hosting organization and country will have a notable impact on the performance of the event. However, it is to be noted that a major event generally tries to meet the interests of diverse people because people from different communities and countries are likely to attend a high-profile event. This is the reason the Montreux Jazz Festival includes almost all forms of music even though this festival was introduced specifically for the promotion of jazz music. The Montreux Jazz Festival would not have achieved this much popularity and audience participation if its focus had been restricted to jazz music only.
7. Real life Examples
8. Conclusion
Therefore, chances of inter-community conflicts are less likely. Since a major event can unimaginably add to the scope of tourism and hospitality sectors, it can benefit the event-hosting region’s economy to achieve an explosive growth in a short span of time. However, a potential negative impact of such events is that it would hurt the environmental sustainability of the region as they are likely to augment the level of waste dumping and energy consumption.
Bibliography
Chillon Castle Foundation. (n.d.). Swiss Cultural Heritage. Montreux Jazz Festival - 39 years of history in posters. [Online] Available at: http://www.chillon.ch/en/previous-exhibitions/mjf [Accessed 24 March 2016].
montreuxjazzfestival.com. (n.d.). What are we doing?. [Online] Available at: http://www.montreuxjazzfestival.com/en/le-festival/social-environmental-responsibility [Accessed 24 March 2016].
