HAVING been at the recent Marlow Jazz-Groove festival, I was interested to read your article in the Marlow Free Press. It was an excellent day, and artists and organisers should be congratulated.

Regarding the furore about the no show of Alexander O'Neal, I did see and hear quite a lot that occurred and there were several complainers who were very rude and threatening.

However, the majority of people only wanted an explanation of what had occurred as there was no apology or explanation of what had happened - and eventually Mr O'Neal's manager explained that he was could not get out of the States due to domestic problems.

With the fastest plane in the world flying from the US to Heathrow and a fast car from there direct to Marlow, it must have been known several hours earlier that Mr O'Neal was not going to attend.

The fact that the board outside still stated he would be performing till 7 meant a lot of people (and many were prepared to pay £20 just to see Mr O'Neal) must have felt they had been 'duped' into attending ... I don't think the organisers had any intention of misleading anyone, but their handling of this one situation could have been 100 times better.

I am sad to hear the organisers are not going to hold the event again due to this incident, and hope they will change their minds, as it is a very good event.

Mr N King

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