WASHINGTON, DC – The Cayman Islands Department of Tourism has retained BET Digital Networks for the fourth consecutive year to promote the Cayman Jazz Fest across both BET and BET J cable channels, as well as use its relationship with parent company Viacom to generate additional national television, radio and print exposure.
Announcing the contract, Cybelle Brown, Vice President of Sales and Business Development with BET Digital Networks, said the event will be produced by sister company BET Event Productions from November 29 to December 1, 2007 in Grand Cayman.
Cybelle Brown
“We are honored to have been given the nod to promote both the festival and the Cayman Islands to our discerning viewers for another year,” said Brown, who expects a number of BET J viewers to visit Cayman during and beyond the festival period.
American R&B singer Brian McKnight, soulful crooner Joe, Jamaican virtuoso jazz pianist Monty Alexander and international gospel headliner BeBe Winans are part of an impressive line up for the festival which also includes Blue Note recording artist and pre-eminent jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves; Swiss-born keyboardist and composer Alex Bugnon, and Philadelphia soul singer Musiq. Other names will be added to the line-up in the weeks ahead.
BET J will produce a one-hour post concert show highlighting all the exciting performances and artists of Jazz Fest to air on the network sometime in 2008.
In the meantime, BET J is mounting a heavy primetime advertising campaign to promote the festival, and a half-hour preview show to air multiple times on both BET J and BET from September through November.
Additionally, the network is marketing the festival over six weeks to smooth jazz radio stations in Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Washington and New York, while the festival will be promoted in music publications such as Billboard Magazine, Smooth Jazz Magazine, Jazziz Magazine, Essence, Ebony and Air Jamaica’s Island News Magazine.
“With headline act Brian McKnight and other internationally acclaimed jazz and R&B artists, Jazz Fest 2007 is going to be another great event,” said Minister of Tourism Charles Clifford. “Based on the positive feedback received from visitors and residents after Jazz Fest 2006 – one influential journalist describing it as a ‘gem’ of a festival, I am confident that we will see an increase in attendance over previous years. The event also provides a forum for local musicians in this genre to interact with and perform beside internationally renowned artists. This opportunity can only boost the development of local talent and bring greater international awareness and appreciation of them.”
The Cayman Jazz Fest is organized by the Department of Tourism in partnership with BET J.
