One of my duties as Editor-In-Chief
of SmoothViews is
to read and reply to comments that we receive from the submission
form on our Contact Page. A lot of the comments are
great ego-stroking kind of remarks like, “Your site rocks!” We
really love those. In fact, feel free to click
on this link and leave as many of those as you like! Strangely
though, not many days go by that I don’t receive questions
about the/our jazz festival. From what I can ascertain
from the questions, they are usually referring to one particular
festival. Why I get these questions, I really don’t
know. I’ve stayed awake nights trying to figure
this out.
I Googled the festival in question (hereafter
referred to as *That Jazz Festival) and, just as I
suspected, the first site listed is actually That Jazz
Festival’s site! 99%
of all web surfers will click on that first site listed. Makes
sense, right, especially since it’s “www.thatjazzfestival.com”? SmoothViews’ link
is usually the fourth one from the top. If you click
on it, it goes to the review we did of That Jazz Festival in
2005. Nowhere on that page do we claim to even be affiliated
with That Jazz Festival. In fact, there is a
rather large masthead with the SmoothViews logo on every
page as well as a cute little logo at the bottom of the page. So
I remain confused as to how that many people could mistake
us for That Jazz Festival’s site on such a regular
basis. But they do.
Mostly I get questions about the line-up,
vendor information, how to get tickets and how to book hotel
rooms. I used
to diligently reply explaining that we are not That Jazz
Festival and couldn’t help them, but one day I realized,
hey, they think they are contacting That Jazz Festival,
so if I don’t reply it will reflect badly on That
Jazz Festival, not us, so I stopped replying.
Sometimes I wonder how much money I could have made selling
tickets, booths, and booking hotel rooms, but I’m really
way too claustrophobic to risk serious jail-time.
I do wonder sometimes about what OUR jazz festival would be
like if we had one. But I decided I’d rather have
a Summer Concert Series instead of a festival. I’d
call it the We Don’t Need No Stinking Lifestyle Summer
Smooth Jazz Series. Wear your old jeans and pull your ’97
Honda right up to the fence with pride. Bring the kids. We’ll
have discounted tickets for them. Bring the dog. They’ll
get in free. Bring the potato salad and chips. We’ll
sell both kinds of beer – Bud and Bud light. Come
prepared to relax? No way. Be ready to stand up
and shout and dance in the aisle.
And don’t forget your camera!
- Elizabeth Ware
*not its real name.
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