Downtown Organizations Unhappy More than Jazz Fest Shift

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Businesses in downtown Rochester are reacting right after it was introduced Thursday that the CGI Rochester Intercontinental Jazz Pageant will acquire spot on the Rochester Institute of Technology campus this 12 months, relatively than downtown.

Jim Kaiser is a regular at Temple Bar and Grill on East Avenue.

“It’s just a pleasant atmosphere. I arrive below a number of periods a week, and pretty frankly, it’s a awesome area to wind down immediately after a tricky working day at perform,” Kaiser explained.

And he likes the bar for the similar purpose he loves downtown.

“That’s why I stay downtown. It’s mainly because of the great, superb cultural items that come about in this metropolis,” Kaiser said. 

So even though he understands why, he was nevertheless a little bit let down to hear the CGI Rochester Worldwide Jazz Pageant is not going to be held at its common household downtown this year. In its place, hosted at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

“I’m concerned that it’s not likely to have the very same cafe, easy-likely avenue feel it’s experienced in the earlier,” Kaiser reported.

Michael O’Leary owns Temple Bar and Grill and states the pageant will absolutely be skipped.

“It’s a wonderful 10 times. It’s not only a great strengthen to the business in the course of the Jazz Fest, but it provides men and women downtown who really do not normally come downtown,” O’Leary said.

Bethany York, a barista at Java’s Cafe close by, agrees.

“Bummed. Truly, truly bummed. We really like Jazz Fest, it’s a excellent time for us. It is outrageous, it is chaotic, but it’s like a bonding experience for all of us,” York stated.

But from a enterprise standpoint, O’Leary says it is not a huge blow.

“I really don’t think any of us genuinely expected the competition to be taking place this 12 months at all, so none of the companies in the spot we’re actually counting on the pageant this 12 months,” O’Leary said.

Instead, York and O’Leary are just happy the festival is not being canceled all over again. And equally are hopeful it will return to downtown in 2022.

“It is essential that the functions get rescheduled. It’s sort of the lifeblood of this area,” O’Leary reported.

And Kaiser couldn’t concur more. Just after all…it is property.

“The most effective Jazz Fest will transpire downtown. This is the ideal place in the environment to have it,” Kaiser reported.

The festival will acquire location July 30 by means of August 7.