OVERTON PARK, KS (CelebrityAccess) — Organizers for Kansas City’s annual Jazz in the Woods announced that 2018 edition of the long-running festival had been canceled due to a lack of funds.<\/p>\n
Organized by the Overland Park South Rotary Club to benefit children’s charities in greater Kansas City, the event has taken place for 28 years and raised over $1.5 million for the benefit of Growing Futures, Sunflower House and the Future of Hope Fund.<\/p>\n
In a statement published on their website, organizers wrote:<\/p>\n
“It takes over $200,000 to produce this annual family-friendly music festival. Every year, our club and its volunteers work tirelessly to design and deliver the largest musical event of its kind in Johnson County by bringing in top-notch performers and vendors. We are so thankful to you, our supporters, for helping us to keep the music playing.”<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, our club was unable to solidify the funds we need to provide the high-quality experience our community deserves.”<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Kansas City Star, club president Theresa Jones said the decision to pull the plug on the festival is hopefully a temporary measure and said she hopes the event will return in 2019 if they can secure a major corporate sponsor.<\/p>\n
The festival started in 1989 as a small event with a handful of local jazz musicians. The next year, the Rotary took the event over and developed it into a much larger event, drawing nationally recognized artists and upwards of 40,000 jazz fans for across the three days of the fest.<\/p>\n
In recent years, however, the audience for the festival has diminished, with annual attendance figures in the 10,000 range. As well, while the festival started as a free event, but last year, the Rotary started charging a nominal ticket fee of $5 dollars for adults.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OVERTON PARK, KS (CelebrityAccess) — Organizers for Kansas City’s annual Jazz in the Woods announced that 2018 edition of the long-running festival had been canceled due to a lack of funds. Organized by the Overland Park South Rotary Club to benefit children’s charities in greater Kansas City, the event has taken place for 28 years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":40088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stc_notifier_status":"","_stc_notifier_sent_time":"","_stc_notifier_request":false,"_stc_notifier_prevent":false,"_stc_subscriber_keywords":"","_stc_subscriber_search_areas":""},"categories":[75,53,22,54],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n