Hampton jazz fest tightens belt
MOSCOW, Idaho — The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival at the University of Idaho is delaying projects, turning to sponsors and scrutinizing payouts to help the university grapple with a $36 million budget deficit.
Construction on a planned $40-million Lionel Hampton Center now won’t begin until 2010 at the earliest — three years behind schedule.
It was UI’s botched expansion attempt in Boise — the now-infamous University Place project — and legislative-funding cuts amid a recession that forced the school to take a closer look at its finances.
Officials discovered the 37-year-old music festival, known throughout the jazz world, was $2.1 million in the hole.
The festival, whose namesake died two years ago at the age of 94, grew from a one-day event in 1967 to a four-day affair drawing thousands to see big names like Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby McFerrin and Diana Krall. Hampton devoted himself to the festival, performing and extending invitations to stars from 1985 to 2002.
The financial crunch came at a time when ticket sales to the festival’s evening concerts were decreasing. The university absorbed the festival’s $2.1 million debt last year and ordered it to rein in spending.
“If someone asks for $150,000 to come and perform, there’s a good chance they won’t be here,” says Lynn Skinner, the festival’s executive director. “We have to be wise about how we spend our money.”
The plan to build the center — with an 800-seat performance hall, library, archives and classrooms — has been put on hold while new university president Tim White figures out how to strengthen the school’s finances. It had been planned for 2007.
“We’re most likely seeing this around 2010, which is now our target date for initiation of construction, with a two-year window to complete it,” says Joe Zeller, dean of UI’s College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences.
Zeller said White remains committed to the festival and sees the center as a “signature” project underscoring UI’s liberal-arts strengths.
More than 200 UI music majors organize the festival and compete in it. With a budget of $700,000, it is a major learning tool for students studying music and business, said Zeller, who oversees the academic components of the festival and the Lionel Hampton Center Initiative.
The 2004 festival was in the black, organizers say.
“Last year we came out ahead of the game,” Skinner says. “That’s what we were asked to do and that’s what we did.”
Last month, the festival got a boost from the federal government.
The Lionel Hampton Artist in Residence and the Lionel Hampton Scholars program got a $400,000 share of the $388 billion federal spending bill.
Festival organizers also are focusing more on outside sponsors to help defray costs and are finding them. Conn-Selmer, one of the world’s largest instrument companies, will chip in money for the 2005 festival.
“The festival will not go backward in any way,” Skinner said. “There are too many artists and people who love what is happening here.”