Over 30 glorious years, Ealing Jazz Festival has attracted hundreds of thousands of people and been the foundation for more recent introduction of other festivals in Ealing Council's summer programme.  In its hay day, the Jazz Festival ran for eight days producing 34 concerts on the main stage, with major corporate and local sponsors. Since outsourcing the management of the festival to a private contractor the sponsorships have ended, admission charges have been introduced and now it is proposed to cut the Festival to just two days.  This is despite participation by top jazz artists and audience attendance levels remaining high.  The outsourced company is still involved despite being the root cause of the need to cut costs.

Ealing music lovers and supporters from all over the country will be devastated by the proposal. To add insult to injury the Council intends to dispense with the services of Dick Esmond, the co-founder and Artistic Director of the Festival with his irreplaceable skills in programming and as regular compere throughout the Festival`s 30 years.  The plan is to transfer his role to the private company, which is not linked to the local community or the musicians involved!

This well loved event must be allowed to continue to thrive in its present form of five days as an essential part of Ealing’s cultural and visitor attraction programmes.