Vandals attack jazz festival signs in Llandeilo


Welsh language campaigners have destroyed roadside signs and trespassed on the Evan-Evans brewery site to deface promotional banners promoting this weekend’s Llandeilo Jazz Festival, it is claimed.
Jazz at Llandeilo 2013 is a sell-out and the West Wales market town is expecting more than 2,000 visitors for the festival.
Jazz Festival promoter Simon Buckley, chief executive of the Evan-Evans brewery, said
“No other brewer in Wales has done more to promote Welsh brewing and hospitality than me.
“The reason we have not been able to brand the festival in Welsh is one of cost.
“Last year, my company spent £15,000 getting Jazz in Llandeilo started for the benefit of the town as a whole. This year, we hoped other companies would step forward and support the festival but they have not, so we have had to scale back the level of promotional support.
“This year, the festival is set to raise significant sums for the two primary schools, including Ysgol Teilo Sant in Llandeilo, to help purchase musical instruments.
“The festival strategy is to develop over a three-year period a bilingual communications plan where increasingly, as we change our branding, we bring more Welsh into the jazz branding.
“But we will not be able to move forwards next year. The £1,000 we need now to replace the roadside signs and banners, cannot be used for upgrading the website.
“The people of Llandeilo are sickened by the wanton vandalism perpetrated by a minority of people who fail to realise the economic situation.
“These people have never had the good grace or manners to come and discuss any concerns they may have with me. Jazz 2013 is the biggest event to hit Llandeilo for many years.
“If the Welsh language supporters believe that the best way to gain support for the language is to conduct campaigns of wanton vandalism, then they are wrong; and they will fast lose the support of my company and the many thousands of people who are coming to Jazz 2013.
“We will not put up with this kind of intimidation. We know who they are. Now the police do - and it really is disappointing that they did not speak to us first.
“However, the show goes on and we look forward to a great weekend of jazz.”
http://www.jazzatllandeilo.co.uk/

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