Principals involved in Lucid plan aren’t done with Aurora

April 9, 2013 · 0 Comments

By Brock Weir

With Aurora Live! dead in the water, enough time has passed for heads to cool and assess the situation.

But George Roche, founder of Lucid Productions, the group that brought forward the Aurora Live! festival isn’t completely done with Aurora. 2014, he said, is definitely a possibility.

“I would love to [bid on a festival] if we can get the ‘Wild, Wild West’ politics and the cynicism projected by [Councillor Chris Ballard] which I believe rises out of the treatment unto the Aurora Jazz Fest organizers,” said Mr. Roche, referring to the war of words between himself and the Councillor while the festival was still on the table. “We always had a great feeling of working with Aurora and nothing has changed. When things go a little bit sideways obviously politicians start to protect themselves and their own credibility within the Town, but in this case the credibility wasn’t protected.”

Credibility also took a hit, he claims when Councillor Abel began to get “demanding” on which bands should take to the stage and how much they should be paid, as well as what he describes as a “spectacle” being made out of their references.

“2013 is out of the question [for a festival],” he said. “We’re very sorry it didn’t go the way we had proposed. It wasn’t anything to do with our actions, certainly being the lead writer and the pitchmen for the plan, I certainly wouldn’t have done anything to hijack my own proposal. It appears that we were spectators in everybody else’s drama.”

Much of this drama also stemmed from the resignations of many notable people from the board of Lucid, citing “philosophical” differences with Mr. Roche, including Canadian Idol judge Farley Flex, broadcaster Christine Bentley, and singers Brian Melo and Theo Tams, and dancer Miles Faber.