2007 Moruya Jazz Festival

2007 Moruya Jazz Festival What a wonderful festival. The weather was perfect. The whole town was buzzing with excitement all weekend as jazz fans mingled with locals in the streets and at five different venues throughout the town.

The street parade was voted the best ever. Led by Festival President Roger Bayley, Cr Fergus Thomson, and Rex Ambassador Max Kingston, it entertained and delighted adults and children alike. More bands than ever joined the parade including the Moruya Town Band. Familiar faces included the Eurobodalla Children’s Choir and Sing Australia.
Onlookers were treated to a great display of vintage, veteran and other, well loved cars, motor cycles and tractors as well as a local surf boat and a dragon boat which really stretched the imagination.

The Moruya Red hatters, elegantly seated on the back of a truck this year drew admiring looks from the crowd as they displayed their colourful red and purple regalia.
The annual Country Energy Picnic in the Park which drew huge crowds, featured music by a number of school bands who just seem to get better and better. The festival was once again opened by Cl Fergus Thomson who has always been an avid supporter. A highlight was the draw of the raffle for prepaid ticket purchasers, by Rex Ambassador Max Kingston who flew to Moruya especially for the event. Two return Moruya –Sydney tickets donated by Regional Express were won by Sandra Meyers.

Awesome, Incredible, Amazing was how the workshops for young musicians conducted by Al Davey and his band were described by participants and many requests were made to hold them again next year.

The fun continued throughout the weekend. A boon to tired feet was the jazz shuttle, provided by Marshalls Buses, which ferried patrons between the Golf Club and other venues, encouraging much more movement between venues. Hopefully this will become a feature of future festivals.
Not even a power failure which left the whole town without electricity could stop the traditional Sunday afternoon session in the Monarch Beer Garden and our musos showed what they were made of by pressing on regardless!
Jazz fans appreciated the forward advertising of next year’s festival (October 17 18 19) and many have already booked their accommodation.