Difficulty Holding Music Festivals Far From Jakarta

Astrid Sulaiman (central), Vice President of Ubud Village Jazz Festival (Ivan Two Men/VOI)

JAKARTA - Astrid Sulaiman, a musician who is also the Vice President of the Ubud Village Jazz Festival (UVJF), has revealed her long experience in managing international music festivals in Bali.

According to him, holding a music festival far from Jakarta has its own difficulties. Moreover, UVJF is managed by a team that is relatively small.

"The first difficulty is for sponsorship. Because I am engaged in the sponsorship sector, everything must be approved from Jakarta. So for us it looks like it's difficult, to penetrate the head office in Jakarta," Astrid said in Thamrin, Central Jakarta, some time ago.

"Like for example, if we go to a mineral water brand, they have an office in Bali, yes they have a regional budget, but it's small. If for example we want to be quite supported, we have to go to Jakarta. And we have another effort to go to Jakarta, wait for the procedure first," continued Astrid.

As a music festival with international labels, Astrid also mentions that her party is also facing difficulties when it comes to bringing in foreign jazz musicians, even though many of them are interested in appearing in Bali.

"Yes, actually, even though there are a lot of good things from outside, we have a lot of considerations. First, it's about cost. Their fees are definitely using dollars or euros, exchanged with us (rupiah), so it's very expensive," Astrid said.

"Then the second is how to bring them to us. What is the plane ticket, whether it is borne by the embassy concerned or not. Then the three visas, per head, count how much rupiah, how much million. That must be taken into account all of them," he added.

However, Astrid still wants to make UVJF a music event that still holds its idealism, by presenting 100 percent of jazz musicians at every event.

"We have a background from the art community, so for us nothing to lose, the important thing is that our idealism is going, the festival is going," he said.

"What is the goal of UVJF, why isn't there a famous name in Indonesia, because there are already many popular platforms. There are so many music festivals in Indonesia, and they already have fields for these musicians (popular). While jazz musicians whose terms are not known, they don't have a platform to express their ideas.