Editorial: Student group involvement is key to reviving the JazzReggae Festival

After years of taking financial hits, the JazzReggae Festival is a shadow of what it was just a few years ago.

This year, the Undergraduate Students Association Council Cultural Affairs Commission has reduced what was a two-day festival with professional artists in 2014 to a five-hour event primarily featuring student performers.

These cuts were necessary to keep a three-decades-long tradition alive. But, despite being short on resources, future organizers, this year’s included, can make the best of a dismal situation by contacting student groups to sell their own goods at the event. This change is relatively minor and can redefine JRF as a student-centered event in the midst of cuts that otherwise look like defeat.

If students were to set up shop and act as the festival’s primary vendors, CAC could potentially increase its ticket sales while simultaneously cutting costs because of higher turnout from members of student organizations. When a plethora of on-campus groups are involved in events, it’s significantly easier to draw a crowd. This increases the likelihood of profit and the commission’s ability to restore the event to its former glory.

While there are plans to have some kinds of outside vendors present, augmenting them with student groups can only make the event better.

Perhaps even more beneficial would be the reduction of food costs. JRF often hosts a number of food trucks to provide fuel to hungry festival-goers. Primarily using student vendors will not only decrease the CAC’s spending, but also help the student groups raise funds for their organizations.

JRF will likely take a hit to its image by moving to a venue that holds only 2,000 people, not to mention the fact that it will not host the likes of The Roots, Santigold or Snoop Dogg any time soon. Spinning this reduction in quality as a positive initiative to make it an event of the students, by students and for students is probably the best route to try to maintain some level of interest in the festival.

Modeling the non-musical aspect of JRF after relatively successful student events like last year’s General Representative 1’s The Hub and General Representative 2’s Night Market last quarter seems like a surefire way to draw a decently sized crowd of students. These two events shouldn’t be too difficult to emulate, since the student government offices that organize them work with far smaller budgets than offices like CAC and the Campus Events Commission.

While JRF probably won’t return to its former glory any time soon, rebranding it as something new, rather than a watered-down version of what it once was, is the best course of action. By putting more focus on the UCLA student body and creating a community-based festival, CAC could make JRF a truly student-centered experience.