In 2007, George Wein – founder of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival – sold Festival Productions to Festival Network. This didn’t affect Jazz Fest because (if I understand the organization correctly) Festival Productions New Orleans is a seperate entity from Festival Productions. 

According to today’s New York Times, Festival Network was unable to pay its bills on time in Newport, Rhode Island, so their attempts to stage the Newport Jazz Festival came to naught. Now Wein has announced that he’ll stage George Wein’s Folk Festival the last weekend in July and George Wein’s Jazz Festival the first weekend in August. Sound familiar?