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MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL

Montreux Jazzfest ticket sales rise sharply

The 47th Montreux Jazz Festival wrapped up on Sunday after 18 days with organizers saying they were happy with increased attendance and rosy revenues.

Montreux Jazzfest ticket sales rise sharply
Prince, one of this year's headliners, performed three concerts. Photo: AFP

Featuring the likes of Sting, Prince, Deep Purple and Leonard Cohen, the festival sold 105,000 tickets, a 46 percent increase over the previous year, festival director Mathieu Jaton is quoted as saying by 20 Minutes online.

“We are proud and happy,” said Jaton who took over the reins of the festival this year after founding director Claude Nobs died in January.

“Our new venue, the Club surpassed all our expectations,” he said.

This year’s edition of the festival paid tribute to Nobs, with musicians such as George Benson and Quincy Jones making their personal notes of appreciation, and the municipality of Montreux added to the honours on Friday.

The municipality announced that it would rename a section of the high street — between the Plaza and the Petit Palais — Avenue Claude Nobs.

One sour note sounded during the festival when its daily publication Montreux Jazz Chronicle inadvertently used a photo of a child murdered in France 29 years ago to promote its child day-care centre.

The photo of Grégory Villemin appeared in the Montreux Jazz Chronicle on July 13th.

The parents of the child, whose murder has never been solved, were “scandalized” by the development, according to their lawyer, and the festival was forced to issue an apology.

The blunder was largely forgotten as Swiss media summed up the festival in generally positive terms.

Jaton said despite a bigger budget — 25 million francs ($26.6 million), up three million francs from the previous year — the festival covered its costs.

“We took great risks, but that paid off,” the festival director told 20 Minutes.

“All of a sudden, with all these positive points, we have a lot of pressure for the next year, Jaton said.

The 48th edition of the festival is set to run from July 4th to 19th 2014.

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MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL

Line-up released for Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival

After being postponed due to the Covid pandemic, the Montreux Jazz Festival will be held this July.

Line-up released for Switzerland's Montreux Jazz Festival
A statue of Freddie Mercury in the Swiss town of Montreux. Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

British singer-songwriter Rag’n’Bone Man and French neofolk musician Woodkid are headlining this year’s Montreux Jazz Festival, downsized and to be held mostly outdoors due to the pandemic, organisers said Tuesday.

French-Lebanese trumpeter and composer Ibrahim Maalouf and British singer-songwriter Arlo Parks, who was named best breakthrough artist at this year’s Brit Awards, are also in the line-up.

“Small is beautiful,” is the informal slogan for the 55th edition of the festival, which was cancelled last year due to the coronavirus crisis.

The festival has been scheduled for July 2-17, coinciding with the planned loosening of anti-Covid measures in Switzerland.

Around 20,000 spectators are expected to turn out — more than 10 times fewer than in 2019, when some 250,000 took part, according to organisers.

For more than half a century, Montreux has been a magnet for big names of the music business and rising stars alike.

It has retained its jazz label despite dramatically expanding its repertoire, with big names in rock, punk, R&B and hip-hop also on the bill this year.

The 2021 programme has been condensed and the format adjusted to easily adapt to the Covid-19 situation in the idyllic Swiss town of Montreux, on the shores of Lake Geneva.

The main stage has been built on the lake, 25 metres (80 feet) from the shore, opposite a grandstand that can hold up to 500 spectators.

It will be one of only four stages used for the festival — two for ticket holders and two free of charge — able to accommodate a total of up to 1,500 people a day.

Tickets go on sale on June 8. Organisers also said they would livestream several of the concerts “in order to bring the festival to a larger audience”.

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