Yes, undoubtedly the presence of rock and pop acts is there to bring a younger and more numerous audience, although Sting's audience is aging as well. But we also shouldn't forget that this mix has been at the inception of many jazz festivals. Montreux, Nice and Newport jazz festivals always had jazz and more crowd pleasing acts. We shouldn't be too cynical as well and accept that people and festival organisers think of pop, funk, R&B and rock acts as directly linked to jazz, kind of being the children of it. I'm saying this while acknowledging that the main reason for the presence of these genres in jazz festival is commercial viability.
There's just one sentence I don't agree with and it's this one: "Classical doesn't need it because THAT genre is a MUCH older wealthier crowd (cost of shows is not price sensitive) and been steady and price is not much of an issue." I can't comment on the status and fonctioning of "classical" (i hate that word) music in the USA, but I have lived in France (where I was born), in Australia and I now live in the U.K., and it's been my experience that pop and rock concerts are the most expensive to go to.
I'm always annoyed by people who say they don't go to orchestral performance because they don't have the money, it's wrong, at least in the countries I've lived in. When living in Sydney I used to go regularly to the Opera House, there I've seen Tori Amos and other pop acts, tickets were more than AU$100, same for Seal at the State Theatre. Prices were in the same range for The Police at the local arena. In France and the U.K. tickets for international stars are also very expensive, closer to £/€100 than to €/£50. By the way in Australia, prices to go and see jazz stars were the same as for pop stars, I've seen Wayne Shorter and Ornette Coleman and the prices were in the same range. However, you could go and hear the Sydney Symphony for AU$20-30 and local jazz performance for a tenner (and that means Mike Nock, Judy Bailey, Dale Barlow, Sandy Evans, Errol Buddle, Phil Slater, Roger Dean....really excellent musicians). It's the same in France and in the U.K. I agree, the crowd is different, people going to classical and jazz concerts are generally coming from educated and wealthy (sometimes both) parts of the population. However, I think it is more a cultural issue than a commercial one. The main difference, as someone already suggested is that classical venues and some jazz venues get public money. Of course jazz gets a lot less, and in France that has been quite dramatically reduced sine jazz has been merged "institutionallly" with "musiques actuelles" (current music, meaning mostly amplified popular music), which is why classical music can offer performances at a more accessible price than pop acts. However jazz festivals, big ones, need to fill the seats, so yes pop and rock acts are here for that. France is a bit apart because pop music gets funding as well but mostly for record production costs.
Sorry for the lengthy post, but this is a very interesting, complicated and fascinating issue, there's lot of academic research made on these questions, if I can and if people are interested, I'll find some references.
Cheers, Pierre.
