News Post

Marsden Jazz Festival update, March 2023

We’re providing a short update on the work that has been taking place since our last jazz festival in 2022 as we know many of you will want to know about our plans for this year’s festival and beyond.

The jazz festival has very limited resources at the moment. We continue to feel the impact of our failure to be awarded Arts Council England project funding in 2022. Since last year’s festival, many other arts organisations have also struggled with cuts to their funding and we are not alone in facing a future landscape of increased competition for shrinking resources in the arts sector.

We have been working behind the scenes though. Towards the end of last year we were successful in a research and development bid to Arts Council England. This funding is helping us to map out the future shape and direction of the festival.

Currently this work involves the jazz festival trustees and it will expand to include our wider Festival Committee and local partners over the coming months. We want to create a sustainable model that will serve the jazz festival, and its community, well for years to come.

That aside, one of the most immediate questions is “will there be a jazz festival this year?”

The jazz festival weekend lands on 6-8 October 2023. We are hoping to present some live music over that weekend but it’s clear that it will not be possible for us to stage a festival on the scale of recent years in 2023. It’s simply beyond our current resources to be able to do this.

It’s now over 30 years since the first ever Marsden Jazz Festival in 1992 and we know how much it has come to mean to people. We’re doing everything we can to secure the future of the festival and will continue to keep you updated on our plans.

The Marsden Jazz Festival Trustees, March 2023