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For its first 4 years, the Pori Jazz festival was managed by amateurs. Then there was a complete turnover. The festival has undergone a number of downturns, but for the last 20 years the festival has steadily been making headway and climbing upwards. "Future jobs will be created within the creative industries sector," foresees Jyri Kangas. Research conducted at Tammerfors University in 1997 indicated that labour engagement had dropped in every field apart from the creative industries. The latter was then predicted to see groundbreaking success. "Indeed, the past 10 years show that this prediction held true," notes Kangas, who is also engaged in many other undertakings. He pulls the strings at several festivals in addition to those in Pori, where festivals are becoming slowly but undeniably the most important income source for the city. Even now, he arrived at the lecture from an intensive jazz weekend at Nõmme. Relying on his long experience, Kangas emphasises the necessity of periodically giving the festival a facelift. One can not take consistent success for granted and believe that everything will turn out as well as it did before. After 5-7 years, the whole concept of the festival ought to be altered and every year a tiny bit of innovation is required. The mission of the festival director is to lead the creative team, to network, and to surround him/herself with competent people, mainly professionals within communications and marketing. It always comes down to inventing something completely new, to offer an innovative combination that no other has thought of before. "And always think big, even if your ideas might seem insane at first," encourages Kangas. For tens of thousands of visitors each year, the Pori Jazz festival offers emotions and experiences, the ambience. This is what the organisers must take care of in co-operation with partners and stakeholders. It's not merely inviting attractive artist. The atmosphere is a holistic package, which consists of restaurants, lodging, the travel to the site itself, shopping, opportunities to be seen, meeting people on the festival street, and, last but not least, excellent organisation that ensures everything goes as planned. |
Mr Pori Jazz: “We sell ambience”
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“We do not sell tickets, just as we do not sell concerts. What we sell is the ambience, the atmosphere,” states Mr Pori Jazz, alias Jyrki Kangas. The man who has been behind the biggest jazz festival in Northern Europe since it started in 1966 in Pori (Björneborg), Finland.Jyrki Kangas expressed his views on festival management using Pori Jazz as an example during a session of the creative industries lecture series on 4 May in Tallinn. The creative industries lecture series is driven by the Nordic Council of Ministers' Office in Estonia and aims to showcase more or less viable creative industries initiatives and implementations within various fields across the Nordic countries. |